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EVANGELINE 



A TALE OF ACADIE 



BY 

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 

NEW EDITION 

WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

BY EVA MARCH TAPPAN 

AND INTRODUCTIONS AND STUDY HELPS 

BY MARGARET ASHMUN 




m^^^^mi 



BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



Houghton Mifflin Company are the only authorized publishers 
of the works of Longfellow, Whittibb, Lowell, Holmes, Emer- 
son, Thoreau, and Hawthorne. All editions which lack the 
imprint or authorization of Houghton Mifflin Company are issued 
without the consent and contrary to the wishes of the authors or 
their heirs. 






^"-X. 



\^ 



COPYRIGHT, 1883, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
COPYRIGHT, I916, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 




DEC -2 f9 1 6 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



C1.A446670 
-7,^ / f 



Sd 



'h contents 



> 



A Sketch of Longfellow's Life. By Eva March 

\ Tappan 1 

,. .\ The History of Longfellow's Evangeline . . 19 

t^^vThe Meter of Evangeline 22 



P^ Historical Introduction 24 



Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie 27 

Study Helps. By Margaret Ashmun .... 98 

A Brief Outline of the Poem 107 

Composition Assignments 109 

Notes 112 

Pronouncing Vocabulary 118 



ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow . • . Frontispiece 
The Wadsworth-Longfellow House, Portland . 2 ''• 

The Craigie House, Cambridge 6 

The Study) Craigie House 16 ^" 

"Reverend walked he among them'' . • . 28 - 
"Fair in sooth was the maiden" • . . .34 
"Speaking words of endearment'' . . . . 54 ^ 

"He blew a blast, that resounded". . . . 74 ' 

Map of Nova Scotia ........ 100 

Map of Louisiana 101 > 



A SKETCH OF LONGFELLOW'S LIFE 

BY 

EVA MARCH TAPPAN 

Of the thousands of people who pass through Portland, 
Maine, in the summer season, there are few who do not 
visit a certain brick house on Congress Street. It is in the 
very heart of the city, a hotel on one side, a store on the 
other, electric cars by the score passing it every hour. The 
old house is somewhat withdrawn from the bustle of the 
street and stands with a quiet dignity, as if it reahzed that 
it had been the early home of Longfellow. The poet was 
born February 27, 1807, in a large square wooden house, 
which is still standing, on the corner of Fore and Hancock 
Streets; but the family moved to the brick house when he 
was a baby, and this was his boyhood home. Many of its 
furnishings remain exactly as they were a hundred years 
ago. The same heavy cooking utensils are ranged about 
the fireplace in the kitchen, and around one of the mantels 
is quaint old chintz printed with camp scenes of the War 
of 1812. On the third floor is a room with a four-posted, 
chintz-canopied bedstead, and here the poet slept both in 
his boyhood and also on his visits home in later years. 
Business blocks now cut off the view, but when Longfellow 
was a boy, he could see from his window the lighthouse of 
which he has written, — 

" Like the great giant Christopher it stands 
Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave, 
Wading far out among the rocks and sands, 
The night o'ertaken mariner to save." 

Portland was a pleasant city for a boy to grow up in. 
There were long Unes of shaded streets; there was charm- 
ing Deering's Woods; and, best of all, there was the ocean 
" with its sea-tides tossing free.'' There were islands near 



2 A SKETCH OF LONGFELLOW'S LIFE 

and islands far, wonderfully beautiful and fascinating; and 
there were the black wharfs at which the white-sailed ships 
from the other side of the world made their moorings. It 
was an enchanted city for an imaginative boy; and in his 
poem, My Lost Youth, Longfellow has told how delightful 
it all seemed to him. 

The poet's father, Stephen Longfellow, was a prominent 
lawyer, who held in the course of his life numerous promi- 
nent positions. Several times he was a member of the 
State Legislature, and from 1823 to 1825 he was a member 
of the National House of Representatives. His wife, Zilpah 
Wadsworth, was a descendant of John Alden and Priscilla 
of Mayflower fame. Her father had fought in the Revolu- 
tion, and her brother Henry, only three years before the 
birth of his namesake, had been killed in an attack upon 
the pirates of TripoH. The spacious sitting-room in the 
old brick house must have listened to many thrilUng war 
stories, as the eight Longfellow children gathered around 
the big center table on winter evenings. 

Little boys and girls usually went first to a " dame 
school," that is, one presided over by some old lady; and 
the small Henry was sent to one ruled by a certain ^^ Marm 
Fellows." Later, he went to the pubHc school. It is a long 
way back to 1813, but in that year, when the little boy was 
only six years old, he brought proudly home a report — 
still in existence — which declared that his conduct had 
been " very correct and amiable," and that he had made 
much improvement in spelling and writing. He was fond 
of poetry even in those days, and used to go about the 
house reciting any verses that had struck his fancy. He 
liked the flute, and soon learned to play it with spirit and 
charm. 

The boy fitted for college at the Portland Academy. One 
of his teachers was Jacob Abbott, who wrote the Rollo 
Books and scores of other volumes for boys and girls. 
Henry Longfellow, too, was determined to become an 
author, a poet, and when he was only thirteen he wrote, 
among other verses, The Battle of LovelVs Pond, This pic- 
tured the attack of Captain John Lovell upon the Indian 




THE WAD8WORTH-LONOFELLOW HOUSE, PORTIxAND 



A SKETCH OF LONGFELLOW'S LIFE 3 

villages on the Saco River. Lovell and thirty of his forty- 
six men were slain. This was in 1724, and was the last 
serious fight with the Indians in that part of the country. 
The young writer believed that this was " good enough to 
print." He screwed up his courage and dropped the man- 
uscript into the box of one of the Portland weeklies. Evi- 
dently the editor did not agree with him, for the poem 
was not published. Thereupon the boy, with perhaps a bit 
of indignation, sent it to the rival weekly. It came out 
promptly, and he felt, as he said many years later, " such a 
thrill of dehght " as none of his other pubUcations had 
ever given him. 

Stephen Longfellow was a graduate of Harvard, but he 
was also a trustee of Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, 
Maine, and, perhaps partly for this reason, he chose the 
smaller institution for his son. The boy was now fifteen, 
and entered as a sophomore. " He was slight and erect, 
his complexion light, his nose rather prominent, his eyes 
clear and blue, and his well-formed head covered with a 
profusion of brown hair waving loosely." He was always 
a gentleman, and one who knew him at the time speaks 
emphatically of his " well-bred manners." He was a fa- 
vorite among the students, and he did the college work 
so well that he stood fourth in a class of thirty-eight. But 
he learned much more than the prescribed lessons, for he 
read widely. At graduation he begged his father for a year 
at Harvard. " The truth is,^' he pleaded, " I desire future 
eminence in literature. My whole soul burns most ardently 
for this, and every earthly thought centers in it." This 
confession was not altogether agreeable to the father. He 
had sympathy with his son's love of study, but prices paid 
for Hterature in 1825 were small, and to write seemed to 
him a very precarious fashion of attempting to make one's 
living. He replied that " eminence in literature " was well 
enough for men of means, but that a young man who had 
his way to make in the world would better set his ambi- 
tion on something more likely to furnish him with bread 
and butter. 

So spoke one of the trustees of Bowdoin, and the young 



4 A SKETCH OF LONGFELLOW'S LIFE 

man yielded to his father's wish and began to study law. 
Another trustee, however, one Benjamin Orr, had quite 
a different scheme in mind. He was in the habit of visiting 
the oral examinations at the college, and was much dreaded 
by the students because of his keen criticisms and his high 
ideals of scholarship. On one of these visits Longfellow was 
called upon to read his translation of one of the odes of 
Horace. It was so well done that it made a deep impres- 
sion upon the critical visitor; and when it was decided to 
establish a professorship of modern languages at Bowdoin, 
Mr. Orr said promptly; '^ Mr. Longfellow is your man. He 
is an admirable classical scholar. I have seldom heard any- 
thing more beautiful than his translation of one of the 
most difficult odes of Horace. '' The position was offered 
to Mr. Longfellow. 

This prospective professor was only nineteen years old, 
but the college agreed to wait for him until he had reached 
the mature age of twenty-two, provided he would spend 
the three years in Europe. His father agreed to provide 
him with the necessary money, and he started joyfully. 
For three years he traveled in France, Germany, Italy, 
Spain, and England. He studied the languages of these 
countries and he worked hard ; but he also saw their beau- 
tiful sights and learned the thoughts and ways of their 
people, and he was radiantly happy. 

Going to Europe was not the everyday occurrence that 
it is now, and when the young man returned, in 1829, to 
take up his work at Bowdoin, he was looked upon not only 
with the respect due to his attainments, but also with a 
sort of reverence for the wonderful advantages that he had 
enjoyed. He worked hard, — one class came before his 
seven-o'clock breakfast, — but his students liked him and 
were proud of him, and he was happy. His salary was 
eight hundred dollars a year, with the addition of an extra 
hundred for acting as college Ubrarian; but nine hundred 
dollars was a sum to be looked upon with respect in those 
days of small expenses and low prices, and two years later 
the young professor ventured to take a wife, Mary Storer 
Potter, the daughter of Judge Potter, of Portland. 



A SKETCH OF LONGFELLOW'S LIFE 5 

Longfellow the poet was thus far hardly more than 
Longfellow the professor. He did not give up writing, but 
his writing was closely connected with his teaching. He 
translated a French grammar and did still other translating 
and editing, and published articles on the Uterature of 
France and Spain. One of these he revised and expanded, 
and added to it a translation of some Spanish poems, from 
which it took its title of Coplas de Manrique, Coplas are 
short stanzas of a pecuhar form, and these of Jorge Man- 
rique were a series of beautiful meditations on the death of 
his father, written in the fifteenth century. This was Long- 
fellow's first original volume, and was pubUshed by Allen 
and Ticknor, the same firm that, under another name, 
still publishes his poems. Outre- Mer — meaning beyond 
the sea — came next. This is a collection of sketches of his 
travels in Europe. All this writing was well done. It is 
graceful and thoughtful. It shows itself to be the work of 
a cultivated, scholarly man, and it was favorably spoken 
of. It was agreeable reading, but there was nothing in it to 
show that some day the writer would come close to the 
hearts of the people, that he would produce poems which 
would win not only their respect, but their eager affection. 

The ability of the young professor had become known at 
Harvard, and on the resignation of Professor George Tick- 
nor, who had occupied the chair of modern languages, 
Longfellow was asked to succeed him. He decided to take 
another trip to Europe to do still further work in languages 
and literature. In Holland, the first grief of his life came 
upon him in the death of his wife. He remained abroad a 
year and a half; he did the work for which he had come, 
but his heart was heavy with sadness. Some years later, 
his sorrow found expression in the poem Footsteps of 
Angels. In this he speaks of seeing, as in a vision, the 
forms of departed friends. Of her he says, — 

" And with them the Being Beauteous, 
Who unto my youth was given, 
More than all things else to love me. 
And is now a saint in heaven. 



6 A SKETCH OF LONGFELLOW'S LIFE 

** With a slow and noiseless footstep 
Comes that messenger divine, 
Takes the vacant chair beside me, 
Lays her gentle hand in mine. 

" And she sits and gazes at me 

With those deep and tender eyes, • 
Like the stars, so still and saint-like, 
Looking downward from the skies." 

The poem closes, — 

" Oh, though oft depressed and lonely, 
All my fears are laid aside, 
If I but remember only 

Such as these have lived and died ! " 

When Longfellow returned to America, his seventeen 
years at Harvard began. He was thirty years old, but he 
looked some years younger; and when he appeared at the 
door of Craigie House and asked if he might engage a room 
there, the stately Madam Craigie demurred and said that 
ebe did not take students. 

^^ But I am not a student," he replied. " I am a pro- 
fessor in the University." 

" A professor? " She looked curiously at one so like 
most students in appearance. 

^' I am Professor Longfellow," he said. 

" If you are the author of Outre-Mer, then you may 
come," said the old lady, and proceeded to show him her 
house. She led him up the broad staircase, and, proud of 
the historic mansion, opened one spacious room after an- 
other, only to close the door of each, saying, " You cannot 
have that," until at length she led him into the southeast 
corner room on the second story. '^ This was General 
Washington's chamber," she said; " you may have this." 
And here he gladly set up his home. 

Craigie House is a roomy, dignified mansion on Brattle 
Street in Cambridge. Around it were then wide-spreading 
green fields, and there was a clear outlook across the mead- 
ows to the winding Charles River and the gentle hills 




2 



A SKETCH OF LONGFELLOW'S LIFE 7 

beyond. In 1759, a rich Tory merchant, John Vassall, 
built the house for his bride, who was a sister of the last 
royal governor of the province. When the Revolution 
broke out, Vassall fled to London, and the Province of 
Massachusetts took possession of the house. At one time 
a battalion of soldiers were sheltered within its walls; but 
when Washington arrived in Cambridge, this house, the 
most commodious in the place, served as his headquarters; 
and here he remained during the anxious days of the siege 
of Boston. In Longfellow's poem, To a Childy he says, — 

" Once, ah, once, within these walls, 
One whom memory oft recalls. 
The Father of his Country, dwelt. 
And yonder meadows, broad and damp, > 
The fires of the besieging camp 
Encircled with a burning belt. 
Up and down these echoing stairs. 
Heavy with the weight of cares. 
Sounded his majestic tread; 
Yes, within this very room 
Sat he in those hours of gloom. 
Weary both in heart and head." 

Later, the Vassall House was sold, and in 1792, it came 
into the hands of Andrew Craigie, who had been Apothe- 
cary-General to the Continental Army. It became now 
the Craigie House, and at the death of her husband, it was 
occupied alone by the august Madam Craigie, who would 
lodge professors but not students. At her death. Dr. Wor- 
cester of dictionary fame bought the house, and in 1843 
he sold it to Longfellow. 

As a professor, Longfellow was respected by the students 
for his knowledge and his increasing fame, but he was loved 
for his never-failing kindness and his gentle courtesy. On 
one occasion there was a rebellion among the college boys. 
They were assembled in the college yard, and one professor 
after another tried in vain to obtain a hearing from them. 
At last, Longfellow came forward, and then there was a 
hush, and the word went round, ^^ Let 's hear Professor 



8 A SKETCH OF LONGFELLOW'S LIFE 

Longfellow, for he always treats us as gentlemen." The 
famous editor and clergyman, Edward Everett Hale, au- 
thor of The Man without a Country ^ was one of Longfellow's 
pupils, and says of him: — 

" From the first he chose to take with us the relation of 
a personal friend a few years older than we were. 

^^ As it happened, the regular recitation rooms of the 
college were all in use, and indeed, I think he was hardly 
expected to teach any language at all. He was to oversee 
the department and to lecture. But he seemed to teach us 
German for the love of it; I know I thought he did, and till 
now it never occurred to me to ask whether it were a part 
of his regular duty. Anyway, we did not meet him in one 
of the rather dingy ' recitation rooms,' but in a sort of 
parlor, carpeted, hung with pictures, and otherwise hand- 
somely furnished, which was, I believe, called the ' Corpora- 
tion Room.' We sat round a mahogany table, which was 
reported to be meant for the dinners of the trustees, and 
the whole affair had the aspect of a friendly gathering in 
a private house, in which the study of German was the 
amusement of the occasion. These accidental surroundings 
of the place characterize well enough the whole proceeding. 

" He began with famihar ballads, read them to us, and 
made us read them to him. Of course, we soon committed 
them to memory without meaning to, and I think this was 
probably part of his theory. At the same time we were 
learning the paradigms by rote. But we never studied the 
grammar except to learn them, nor do I know to this hour 
what are the contents of half the pages in the regular Ger- 
man grammars. 

" This was quite too good to last; for his regular duty was 
the oversight of five or more instructors, who were teaching 
French, German, ItaHan, Spanish, and Portuguese to two 
or three hundred undergraduates. All these gentlemen 
were of European birth, and you know how undergraduates 
are apt to fare with such men. Mr. Longfellow had a real 
administration of the whole department. His title was 
' Smith Professor of Modern Literature,' but we always 
called him ' the Head,' because he was head of the depart- 



A SKETCH OF LONGFELLOW'S LIFE 9 

ment. We never knew when he might look in on a recita- 
tion and virtually conduct it. We were delighted to have 
him come. Any slipshod work of some poor wretch from 
France, who was tormented by wild-cat Sophomores, 
would be made straight and decorous and all right. We all 
knew he was a poet, and were proud to have him in the 
college, but at the same time we respected him as a man 
of affairs. 

*^ Besides this, he lectured on authors or more general 
subjects. I think attendance was voluntary, but I know 
we never missed a lecture. '^ 

During this period, Longfellow wrote to a friend, " Most 
of the time I am alone, smoke a good deal, wear a broad- 
brimmed black hat, black frockcoat, and a black cane. 
Molest no one. Dine out frequently. In winter go much 
into Boston society.^' This hardly sounds like the record of 
the busy man that he was. His teaching and the oversight 
of his department required much time, and he was also 
deep in literary work. He published the romance Hyperion 
which was received with far more enthusiasm than Outre- 
Mer. He wrote poems for magazines, and at last, in 1839, 
he collected these poems into a thin Httle volume called 
Voices of the Night. Here was The Reaper and the Flowers j 
which has brought comfort to many a sorrowing mother; 
and here was the poem that is like a trumpet call to duty, 
the Psalm of Life, the poem that has inspired thousands to 

" Be up and doing, 
With a heart for any fate," — 

the poem that to every one who reads it for the first time 
is always new and strong and wonderful. 

There was no question of the welcome that awaited his 
next volume, which came out two years later. Here was 
The Wreck of the Hesperus, which was founded upon a real 
occurrence. Of this Longfellow wrote in his journal, — 

" December 17, — News of shipwrecks, horrible, on the 
coast. Forty bodies washed ashore near Gloucester. One 
woman lashed to a piece of wreck. There is a reef called 
Norman's Woe, where many of these took place. Among 



10 A SKETCH OF LONGFELLOW'S LIFE 

others the schooner Hesperus. Also, the Seaflower, on 
Black Rock. I will write a ballad on this. 

" December 30. — Wrote last evening a notice of Alls- 
ton's poems, after which sat till 1 o'clock by the fire, smok- 
ing; when suddenly it came into my head to write the 
Ballad of the Schooner Hesperus, which I accordingly did. 
Then went to bed, but could not sleep. New thoughts were 
running in my mind, and I got up to add them to the Bal- 
lad. It was 3 by the clock." 

The Village Blacksmith is also in this volume, and so is 
Excelsior, whose title is the Latin word for higher. This 
word caught the poet's eye one evening as he was glancing 
over a newspaper, and on the nearest bit of paper, which 
chanced to be a letter from Charles Sumner, he wrote the 
poem. This scrap of paper is now in the Ubrary of Harvard 
University. Thus far his poems had manifested thought 
and fancy and grace and beauty of expression, but in this 
little volume was The Skeleton in Armor, and here was 
imagination of a higher type than he had shown before. 
A skeleton in broken and corroded armor had been dug up 
at Fall River, and in the fancy of the poet it became that 
of a " viking bold." He pictured the wild life of the north- 
ern seas, the theft of the wiUing maiden who became the 
viking's wife, and his building for her the famous Round 
Tower of Newport, Rhode Island. Whatever the mysteri- 
ous tower was really built for, Longfellow says serenely 
that his use of it is " sufficiently well estabhshed for the 
purpose of a ballad." 

In 1842, Longfellow made his third visit to Europe. A 
year later, he married Miss Frances Appleton of Boston. 
William Winter said that to remember her " is to wonder 
that so much loveliness and worth could take a mortal 
shape." Longfellow himseK has pictured her, as Mary 
Ashburton, in Hyperion, Eighteen years of quiet enjoy- 
ment followed. The old mansion rang joyously with the 
voices of his children; friends gathered around him; the 
days passed happily; and poem after poem came from his 
hand. Most of them were on foreign subjects, and those 
who were inclined to cavil whispered that there were poetic 



A SKETCH OF LONGFELLOW'S LIFE 11 

themes in America as well as across the ocean. One day 
Hawthorne brought to dine with the poet a friend, who in 
the course of conversation said that he had been urging 
Hawthorne to write a romance on the story of the expul- 
sion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia in 1755. The homes 
of these French peasants were burned, and they themselves 
were driven on shipboard to be scattered along the Ameri- 
can coast. Among them were the young couple, married 
only that morning, whom Longfellow pictures as Gabriel 
and Evangeline. In the confusion and wretchedness they 
were separated and put on different vessels. Evangeline 
searches for Gabriel throughout the colonies, and at last 
finds him on his deathbed in a hospital. This was the 
story. It did not appeal to Hawthorne as suited for a tale; 
but to Longfellow it was the suggestion for his first im- 
portant American poem, Evangeline. Longfellow never 
visited the scenes of this poem. " He never came to see 
us," said one of the dwellers in Grand Pr^. " I wish he had. 
We should have been so glad to welcome him and to do all 
that we could for him.'' His descriptions were all written 
from those given by others; but they are so accurate that 
travelers do not need to have pointed out to them the 
meadows and dikes of Grand Pre, the Basin of Minas, and 
the mist-wreathed summit of Blomidon. Of the conclu- 
sion of the poem, Longfellow says: — 

" I was passing down Spruce Street [Philadelphia] one 
day toward my hotel, after a walk, when my attention was 
attracted to a large building with beautiful trees about it, 
inside of a high enclosure. I walked along until I came to 
the great gate, and then stepped inside, and looked care- 
fully over the place. The charming picture of lawn, 
flowerbeds, and shade which it presented made an impres- 
sion which has never left me, and when I came to write 
Evangeline, I placed the final scene, the meeting between 
Evangeline and Gabriel and the death, at the poorhouse, 
and the burial in an old Catholic graveyard not far away, 
which I found by chance in another of my walks." 

America was young, and Evangeline was '^ the first good 
poem of any length on an American subject." The poet 



12 A SKETCH OF LONGFELLOW'S LIFE 

had come to his own; he was moved by a new inspiration. 
The warmest of praises poured in upon him from far and 
near, and in his next volume he made a graceful acknowl- 
edgment : — 

" Thanks for the sjmipathies that ye have shown ! 
Thanks for each kindly word, each silent token, 
That teaches me, when seeming most alone. 

Friends are around us, though no word be spoken." 

The longest poem in the collection is The Building of 
the Shipy with its threefold significance: the making of a 
ship and giving it to the ocean; the marriage of the master's 
daughter to the youth of her choice; and, last, the noble 
apostrophe to the Ship of State. Mr. Noah Brooks one day 
recited to President Lincoln the closing stanzas, beginning 
with the launching of the vessel. When he came to 

" Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee. 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
Our faith, triumphant o'er our fears. 
Are all with thee, — are all with thee ! " — 

Lincoln's eyes were full of tears. For some minutes he 
could not speak; then he said with his own noble simphcity 
of expression, " It is a wonderful gift to be able to stir men 
like that." 

The long years of teaching and supervising had begun 
to seem wearisome to the poet, and at length he resigned 
his professorship and devoted himself to his writing and the 
enjoyment of his home. The inspiration of the earlier days 
of America did not leave him, and soon he pubHshed The 
Song of Hiawatha. Some of the critics had found fault with 
the meter of Evangeline, declaring that it belonged to 
Latin and had no proper place in English verse; and now 
some of them objected to the form and meter of Hiawatha. 
It is written in a Finnish meter, with a repetition of Unes 
in nearly the same words. This was almost new in English 
verse. The critics criticized it and the parodists parodied 
it, but it held its place, and he would be laughed to scorn 
who should venture to object to it to-day. Hiawatha pic- 
tures the life and thoughts of the Indians, beautified, per- 



A SKETCH OF LONGFELLOW'S LIFE ' 13 

haps, by the glow of the poetic imagination, but with a 
sympathetic and appreciative accuracy that have won 
for its author the love of the Indians themselves. 

This same poetic imagination now shone upon the rather 
somber life of the Pilgrim Fathers, and Longfellow wrote 
The Courtship of Miles Standishj the story of the love of his 
ancestors, John Alden and Priscilla Mullens, and her 
memorable *' Why don't you speak for yourself, John? " 
when, faithful to the stern demands of friendship, he tried 
honestly to plead the cause of the doughty captain, Miles 
Standish. 

In 1861, Mrs. Longfellow was one day amusing her 
children by sealing up bits of their curls in httle packages. 
Her dress caught fire from the burning wax, and a few 
hours later she died. More than a score of years remained 
to the poet, and he had the love of his children and the 
comfort of his work, but his grief was so deep and lasting 
that he could not trust himself to speak the beloved name 
of his wife. After his death there was found in his port- 
folio his poem on The Cross of Snow, which closes: — 

" There is a mountain in the distant West 

That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines 

Displays a cross of snow upon its side. 
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast 

These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes 
And seasons, changeless since the day she died." 

The years went on. New volumes of verse were pub- 
lished, among them the Tales of a Wayside Inn, and a 
translation of one of the greatest poems of the world, 
Dante's Divine Comedy, It pictures the soul of man jour- 
neying through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Much of 
it is gloomy and terrible; but it has the name " comedy " 
because of its happy ending. 

The work of some writers appeals only to certain classes 
of people, the educated, the traveled, the merry, or the 
sad; but Longfellow's appeals to the human heart and 
made friends wherever it went. It was widely read in 
England as well as in America, and in translations waa 



M A SKETCH OF LONGFELLOW'S LIFE 

well known on the Continent. The poet now made a fourth 
visit to Europe ; and honors were heaped upon him. Dickens 
and Tennyson gave him their warmest friendship. The 
Queen invited him to Windsor Castle. Harvard had al- 
ready made him a Doctor of Laws, and now Cambridge 
conferred the degree a second time. Oxford gave him the 
degree of Doctor of Civil Laws. An English reporter de- 
scribes him as he appeared at Cambridge in the scarlet 
robes of an academic dignitary: — 

" The face was one which, I think, would have caught 
the spectator's glance even if his attention had not been 
called to it by the cheers which greeted Longfellow's ap- 
pearance in the robes of an LL.D. Long white silken hair 
and a beard of patriarchal length and whiteness inclosed 
a young, fresh-colored countenance, with fine-cut features 
and deep sunken eyes, overshadowed by massive black 
eyebrows. Looking at him, you had the feeling that the 
white head of hair and beard were a mask put on to con- 
ceal a young man's face; and that if the poet chose he 
could throw off the disguise, and appear as a man in the 
prime and bloom of life." 

During the years following his return from Europe, 
Longfellow published seven or eight more volumes of 
poetry. It is not always fair by any means to gauge an 
author's ability by his income, but it is at least interesting 
to note that for the Psalm of Life Longfellow never re- 
ceived even the five dollars that he was promised, but that 
for his Hanging of the Crane, which came out in 1873, he 
was paid four thousand dollars. On the fiftieth anniversary 
of his graduation from Bowdoin College, he read his noble 
poem, Morituri Salutamus, These words, meaning, we 
who are about to die salute you, were spoken by Roman 
gladiators to the Emperor as they entered the arena; and 
though the poem showed no sign of waning powers, there 
was a sadness about it, for the end could not be expected 
to be many years away. 

Longfellow named his next volume, which he realized 
would probably be his last. Ultima Thule. Thule, or Nor- 
way, was the most distant land known to the Romans, and 



A SKETCH OF LONGFELLOW'S LIFE 15 

ultima means the utmost; therefore, the two words came to 
mean the extreme end, especially the end of life. In this 
volume is his poem of thanks and love to the children 
of Cambridge for their gift of an armchair. The Village 
Blacksmith had always been a general favorite, and pil- 
grims to Cambridge never failed to visit the spreading 
chestnut tree under which the smithy had once stood. In 
1876, the city government decided to cut down the tree 
lest some forgetful driver of a high-piled load should be 
caught among its branches. It was suggested that some 
memento of this tree should be given to the poet by the 
children of the place, and the result was their presentation 
to him, on his seventy-second birthday, of a chair made of 
its wood. It is ebonized, and in the back and elsewhere are 
carvings of horsechestnut leaves and blossoms. Under the 
cushion is a brass plate on which is the following inscrip- 
tion: — 

To 

The Author 

of 

The Village Blacksmith 

This chair, made from the wood of the 

spreading chestnut tree, 

is presented as 

An expression of grateful regard and veneration 

by 

The Children of Cambridge, 

who with their friends join in best wishes 

and congratulations 

on 
This Anniversary, 
February 27, 1879. 

Around the seat, in raised German text, are the lines from 
the poem, — 

" And children coming home from school 
Look in at the open door; 
And catch the burning sparks that fly 
Like chaff from a threshing floor.". 



16 A SKETCH OF LONGFELLOW'S LIFE 

A year later, in 1880, Cambridge celebrated the two 
hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its founding, and at the 
children's festival in Sanders Theatre, the chair stood in a 
prominent place on the platform. The Poem, From My 
Armchair, which begins — 

" Am I a king that I should call my own 
This splendid ebon throne ? " — 

was read aloud; and then the poet, who never made public 
speeches, stepped forward and made a little speech ex- 
pressly to the children, thanking them in prose, as he had 
already done in verse, for their gift. 

Housekeeping at Craigie House now became somewhat 
difficult, for hundreds of small boys and girls presented 
themselves at the door, asking to see the chair, but hoping 
to see its owner. The poet gave orders that not one child, 
no matter how muddy his feet might be, should be turned 
away. Each one received a printed copy of the poem, and 
often a few kindly words from the poet. Longfellow's 
friend, Luigi Monti, the original of The Sicilian^ in Tales 
of a Wayside Inn, came one Christmas Day to dine with 
the poet, and when near the gate met a girl of some twelve 
years who asked him shyly where Mr. Longfellow lived. 

He showed her the house, and she asked, '' Do you think 
I can go into the yard? '' 

'^ Oh, yes," said Signor Monti. " Do you see the room 
on the left? That is where Martha Washington held her 
receptions a hundred years ago. If you look at the win- 
dows on the right, you will probably see a white-haired 
gentleman reading a paper. Well, that will be Mr. Long- 
fellow." 

The child looked gratified and happy at the unexpected 
pleasure of really seeing the man whose poems she said she 
loved. As Signor Monti drew near the house, he saw Mr. 
Longfellow standing with his back against the window, 
his head out of sight. When he went in, the kind-hearted 
Italian said : — 

" Do look out of the window and bow to that little girl, 
who wants to see you very much."- 



A SKETCH OF LONGFELLOW'S LIFE 17 

'* A little girl wants to see me very much? Where is 
she? '' He hastened to the door, and, beckoning with his 
hand, called out, " Come here, little girl; come here, if you 
want to see me/' She came forward, and he took her hand 
and asked her name. Then he kindly led her into the house, 
showed her the old clock on the stairs, the children's chair, 
and the various souvenirs which he had gathered. This 
was but one little instance of many. 

Longfellow's courtesy never failed. He was patient with 
bores, and one day when Professor Charles Eliot Norton, 
the distinguished author, urged him not to allow himself 
to be annoyed by a certain troublesome man who was both 
bold and dishonest, Longfellow looked up with a reproving 
smile and queried with mock seriousness, ^' But, Charles, 
if I were not kind to him, who would be? " A cynical man 
of Cambridge, who had made up his mind that all the poor 
were good and all the rich bad, said, ^* I will make an ex- 
ception of one rich man, and that is Mr. Longfellow. You 
have no idea how much the laboring men of Cambridge 
think of him. There is many and many a family that gets 
a load of coal from him, without anybody 's knowing where 
it comes from." 

As Longfellow's seventy-fifth birthday drew near, there 
was a desire throughout the country to show him some 
special honor. This was done by having his poems recited 
by children in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of schools. 

Not many weeks later, the children, as they passed his 
gate, whispered to one another, *^ Don't make any noise; 
Mr. Longfellow is sick." On the 24th of March, 1882, the 
bells tolled for his death. Two days later, followed by the 
love of thousands, he was laid in beautiful Mount Auburn 
Cemetery. 

It was of this, his last birthday, that Whittier wrote: — 

" With a glory of winter sunshine 
Over his locks of gray, 
In the old historic mansion 
He sat on his last birthday. 



18 A SKETCH OF LONGFELLOW'S LIFE 

" With his books and his pleasant pictures, 
And his household and his kin, 
While a sound as of myriads singing 
From far and near stole in. 



ii 



It came from his own fair city, 
From the prairie^s boundless plain, 

From the Golden Gate of sunset, 
And the cedarn woods of Maine. 

" And his heart grew warm within him. 
And his moistening eyes grew dim. 
For he knew that his country's children 
Were singing the songs of him: 

** The lays of his life's glad morning. 
The psalms of his evening time. 
Whose echoes shall float forever 
On the winds of every clime. 

" All their beautiful consolations. 
Sent forth like birds of cheer. 
Came flocking back to his windows, 
And sang in the Poet's ear. 

" Grateful, but solemn and tender, * 
The music rose and fell, 
With a joy akin to sadness 
And a greeting like farewell. 

" With a sense of awe he listened 
To the voices sweet and young; 
The last of earth and the first of heaven 
Seemed in the songs they sung. 

" And waiting a little longer 

For the wonderful change to come. 
He heard the Summoning Angel, 
Who calls God's children home! 

" And to him in a holier welcome 
Was the mystical meaning given 
Of the words of the blessed Master; 
* Of such is the kingdom of heaven ! ' " 



THE HISTORY OF LONGFELLOW'S 
EVANGELINE 

The origin of the tale brings out one of those interesting 
incidents of the relations of authors toward each other which 
happily are not uncommon. In Hawthorne's American 
Note-Boohs, under date of October 24, 1838, occurs this 

paragraph: " H. L. C [the Reverend H. L. ConoUy, of 

Boston, a friend whom Hawthorne brought to visit Long- 
fellow] heard from a French Canadian a story of a young 
couple in Acadie. lOn their marriage day, all the men of the 
province were summoned to assemble in the church to hear 
a proclamation. When assembled, they were all seized and 
shipped off to be distributed through New England, among 
them the new bridegroom. (His bride set off in search of 
him, wandered about New England all her lifetime, and 
at last, when she was old, she found her bridegroom on his 
deathbed. The shock was so great that it killed her hke- 
wise.'' 

It may have been the same H. L. C. who dined with 
Hawthorne at Mr. Longfellow's one day, and told the poet 
that he had been trying to persuade Hawthorne to write a 
story on this theme. Hawthorne said he could not see in 
it the material for a tale, but Longfellow at once caught at 
it as the suggestion for a poem. " Give it to me," he said, 
*^ and promise that you will not write about it until I have 
written the poem." Hawthorne readily consented, and 
when Evangeline appeared was as quick to give expression 
to his admiration as the poet had been in reviewing Twice- 
Told Tales, He wrote to Longfellow and sent him a copy 
of a Salem newspaper in which he had noticed Evangeline. 
Longfellow replied: — 

" My dear Hawthorne,— I have been waiting and wait- 
ing in the hope of seeing you in Cambridge. ... I have been 



so HISTORY OF LONGFELLOW'S EVANGELINE 

meditating upon your letter, and pondering with friendly 
admiration your review of Evangeline, in connection with 
the subject of which, that is to say, the Acadians, a literary 
project arises in my mind for you to execute. Perhaps I 
can pay you back in part your own generous gift, by giving 
you a theme for story in return for a theme for song. It is 
neither more nor less than the history of the Acadians after 
their expulsion as well as before. Felton has been making 
some researches in the state archives, and offers to resign 
the documents into your hands. 

" Pray come and see me about it without delay. Come 
so as to pass a night with us, if possible, this week, if not 
a day and night. Ever sincerely yours, 

"Henry W. Longfellow." 

The poet never visited the scenes of his poem, though 
travelers have testified to the accuracy of the portraiture. 
" I have never been in Nova Scotia,'' he wrote to a friend. 
" As far as I remember, the authorities I mostly relied on in 
writing Evangeline were the Abbe Raynal and Mr. Hali- 
burton: the first for the pastoral, simple life of the Aca- 
dians; the second for the history of their banishment." He 
gave to a Philadelphia journalist a reminiscence of his first 
thought of the material which forms the conclusion of the 
poem. " I was passing down Spruce Street [Philadelphia] 
one day toward my hotel, after a walk, when my attention 
was attracted to a large building with beautiful trees about 
it, inside of a high enclosure. I walked along until I came to 
the great gate, and then stepped inside, and looked care- 
fully over the place. The charming picture of lawn, flower- 
beds, and shade which it presented made an impression 
which has never left me, and when I came to write Evange- 
line I placed the final scene, the meeting between Evange- 
line and Gabriel and the death, at the poorhouse, and the 
burial in an old Catholic graveyard not far away, which I 
found by chance in another of my walks." 

The Abb^ Raynal was a French priest (1711-96) who 
published A Philosophical History of the Settlements and 
Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies, in which 



HISTORY OF LONGFELLOW'S EVANGELINE 21 

he included an account of affairs in Canada and Nova 
Scotia. He probably exaggerated the simphcity and in- 
nocence of the Acadians. Thomas C. Haliburton wrote 
An Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia, pub- 
lished in 1829. 



THE METER OF EVANGELINE 

The meter of Evangeline is what is called hexameter 
(from two Greek words meaning six and measure). In each 
line there are six divisions, or measures. In the first five 
measures there are usually three syllables, the first of which 
is accented or stressed. The last measure of the line usually 
has only two syllables, the first of which is stressed. Thus 
we may represent the meter of a line in this way: — 

I Some' what ajparf from thel village an^Inear/er thelBa/sin oflMi'nasI 

An examination will show a great variation among the 
lines, as to the number of syllables and the placing of the 
accents. This variation, though slight, helps to prevent a 
sense of monotony in form. Each Hne has, near the mid- 
dle, a pause called a cesura, which saves the line from 
sounding " breathless," or too long-drawn-out. 

The measure that Longfellow uses in Evangeline is imi- 
tated from the old Greek poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, 
Some of the poet's friends were alarmed when they heard 
that he was using this meter, for they said it was not suit- 
able for the EngHsh language, which is less fight and flexi- 
ble than the Greek. But a reading of the poem convinced 
them that the meter was well chosen. It lends itself easily 
to the lingering melancholy which marks the greater part 
of Evangeline, and the poet's fine sense of harmony between 
subject and form is rarely better shown than in this poem. 
The fall of the verse at the end of the line and the sharp 
recovery at the beginning of the next will be snares to the 
reader, who must beware of a jerking style of delivery. The 
voice naturally seeks a rest in the middle of the line, and 
this rest, or cesural pause, should be carefully regarded; a 
little practice will enable one to acquire that habit of read- 
ing the hexameter, which we may liken, roughly, to the 
climbing of a hill, resting a moment on the summit, and 



THE METER OF EVANGELINE 23 

then descending the other side. The charm in reading 
Evangeline aloud, after a clear understanding of the sense, 
which is the essential in all good reading, is found in this 
gentle labor of the former half of the line, and gentle ac- 
celeration of the latter half. 



HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 

The country now known as Nova Scotia, and at one time 
called Acadie by the French, was in the hands of the 
French and English by turns until the year 1713, when, by 
the Peace of Utrecht, it was yielded by France to Great 
Britain. It has ever since remained in the possession of the 
Enghsh. In 1713 the inhabitants of the peninsula were 
mostly French farmers and fishermen, living about Minas 
Basin and on AnnapoHs River. Over these people the 
Enghsh Government exercised only sUght control. It was 
not until the middle of the eighteenth century, when Hali- 
fax was founded, that the Enghsh themselves began to 
make settlements in the country. Between the Enghsh and 
French settlers a jealousy soon sprang up, which was in- 
creased by the beginning of the Seven Years' War, in 
which the two mother countries were to settle the question 
of supremacy in North America. The French engaged in 
a long dispute with the English regarding the boundaries 
of Acadie, which had not been clearly agreed upon by 
treaty. The sympathies of the Acadians were, of course, 
with the French, but they claimed the right to remain neu- 
tral in all disagreements between the Governments. One 
point that caused great trouble was the oath of allegiance 
to the Crown of England. The Acadians refused to take 
this oath, except in a form that would excuse them, in 
case of war, from fighting against the French, to whom 
they were bound by ties of blood and rehgion. 

Most of the Acadians were probably simple-minded and 
peaceful people, who only wanted to Uve quietly on their 
own land and trouble nobody; but there were a few restless 
and spirited young men, and some priests, who made no 
secret of their hatred for the Enghsh, and their intention 
of defying the power that now ruled in the peninsula. As 
the feeling between the two nationaUties grew more bit- 



HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 25 

ter, the problem of how to deal with the Acadians became 
more difficult to the English colony. The officers of the 
colony finally resolved, without consulting the home Gov- 
ernment, to remove the Acadians to other parts of North 
America, distributing them through the Eastern and South- 
ern Colonies, so that there would be no danger of their get- 
ting together for purposes of revenge. To take this harsh 
and unusual action required secret preparation. There 
were at the service of the English governor a number of 
New England troops who had been brought to Nova 
Scotia to capture the forts at the head of the Bay of Fundy. 
These troops were under the command of Lieutenant- 
Colonel John Winslow, of Massachusetts, a great-grand- 
son of Governor Winslow, of Plymouth. He and his as- 
sistant, Captain Murray, were told to think of some 
apparently harmless scheme for bringing the Acadians 
together, so that none might take alarm and escape. On 
the 2d of September, 1755, Winslow issued an order to the 
inhabitants of the Minas region, requesting all the men 
over ten years of age to meet in the church at Grand Pr6, 
on the 5th, to hear some news from the governor. Upon 
the day named, 418 men and boys came together at the 
church. Winslow placed a guard around the building, and 
then made his terrible announcement: The Acadians were 
all to be removed from the country. At the same time 
similar plans were carried out at two other points in the 
Acadian territory. 

Ships had been ordered from Boston, but there was so 
much danger of rebellion among the prisoners that it was 
decided to take them aboard the vessels that had brought 
the troops. This was done on the 10th of September. When 
the other ships arrived, the Acadians — men, women, and 
children, to the number of seven thousand — were carried 
away to North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, 
New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. In the haste 
and confusion of embarking, many families and friends 
were separated, some of whom were never again united. 
Evangeline is the story of such a separation. 



EVANGELINE 



PRELUDE 

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines 
and the hemlocks, 

Bearded ^^ith moss, and in garments green, indistinct 
in the twilight. 

Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and pro- 
phetic, 

Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their 
bosoms. 

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep- voiced neigh- 
boring ocean 5 

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail 
of the forest. 

This is the forest primeval ; but where are the hearts 
that beneath it 

Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland 
the voice of the huntsman ? 

Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Aca- 
dian farmers, — 

Men whose lives glided on Uke rivers that water the 
woodlands, 10 

Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image 
of heaven ? 

Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers for- 
ever departed! 

Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts 
of October 

Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them 
far o'er the ocean. 

Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village 
of Grand- Pre. 15 



28 EVANGELINE [Part I 

Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, 

and is patient, 
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's 

devotion, 
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines 

of the forest ; 
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy. ^ 



PART THE FIRST 

I 

In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of 

Minas, 20 

Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grande- 

Pre 
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched 

to the eastward, 
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks 

without number. 
Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with 

labor incessant, 
Shut out the turbulent tides ; but at stated seasons 

the flood-gates 25 

Opened and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er 

the meadows. 
West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards 

and cornfields 
Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain; and away 

to the northward 
Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the 

mountains 
Sea- fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty 

Atlantic 30 

Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their sta- 
tion descended. 
There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian 

village. 
Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and 

of hemlock. 





REVEREND WALKED HE AMONG THEM 



Section I] EVANGELINE 29 

Such as the peasants of Normandy built m the reign 

of the Henries. 
Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows ; and 

gables projecting 35 

Over the basement below protected and shaded the 

doorway. 
There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when 

brightly the sunset 
Lighted the village street, and gilded the vanes on 

the chimneys, 
Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in 

kirtles 
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the 

golden 40 

Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles 

within doors 
Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and 

the songs of the maidens. 
Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and 

the children 
Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to 

bless them. 
Reverend walked he among them ; and up rose ma- 
trons and maidens, 45 
Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate 

welcome. 
Then came the laborers home from the field, and se- 
renely the sun sank 
Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed. Anon from 

the belfry 
Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the 

village 
Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense 

ascending, 50 

Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and 

contentment. 
Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian 

farmers, — 
Dwelt in the love of God and of man. Alike were 

they free from 



30 EVANGELINE [Part I 

Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice 

of republics. 
Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their 

windows ; 55 

But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts 

of the OAvners ; 
There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in 

abundance. 

Somewhat apart from the village, and nearer the 

Basin of Minas, 
Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of 

Grand-Pre, 
Dwelt on his goodly acres ; and with him, directing 

his household, 60 

Gentle Evangeline lived, his child, and the pride of 

the village. 
Stal worth and stately in form was the man of seventy 

winters ; 
Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with 

snow-flakes ; 
White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as 

brown as the oak-leaves. 
Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen sum- 
mers ; 65 
Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the 

thorn by the wayside. 
Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown 

shade of her tresses ! 
Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed 

in the meadows. 
When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at 

noontide 
Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah ! fair in sooth was the 

maiden. 70 

Fairer was she w^hen, on Sunday morn, while the bell 

from its turret 
Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with 

his hyssop 



Section I] EVANGELINE 31 

Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings 

upon them, 
Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of 

beads and her missal, 
Wearing her Norman cap and her kirtle of blue, and 

the ear-rings 75 

Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as 

an heirloom. 
Handed down from mother to child, through long 

generations. 
But a celestial brightness — a more ethereal beauty — 
Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after 

confession. 
Homeward serenely she walked with God's benedic- 
tion upon her. 80 
When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of 

exquisite music. 

Firmly builded with rafters of oak, the house of 

the farmer 
Stood on the side of a hill commanding the sea ; and 

a shady 
Sycamore grew by the door, with a woodbine wreath- 
ing around it. 
Rudely carved was the porch, with seats beneath; and 

a footpath 85 

Led through an orchard wide, and disappeared in the 

meadow. 
Under the sycamore-tree were hives overhung by a 

penthouse. 
Such as the traveller sees in regions remote by the 

roadside, 
Built o'er a box for the poor, or the blessed image of 

Mary. 
Farther down, on the slope of the hill, was the well 

with its moss-grown 90 

Bucket, fastened with iron, and near it a trough for 

the horses. 
Shielding the house from storms, on the north, were 

the barns and the farm-yard ; 



32 EVANGELINE [Part I 

There stood the broad- wheeled wains and the antique 
ploughs and the harrows ; 

There were the folds for the sheep ; and there, in his 
feathered seraglio, 

Strutted the lordly turkey, and crowed the cock, with 
the selfsame 95 

Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent 
Peter. 

Bursting with hay were the barns, themselves a vil- 
lage. In each one 

Far o'er the gable projected a roof of thatch ; and a 
staircase. 

Under the sheltering eaves, led up to the odorous 
corn-loft. 

There too the dove-cot stood, with its meek and inno- 
cent inmates 100 

Murmuring ever of love ; while above in the variant 
breezes 

Numberless noisy weathercocks rattled and sang of 
mutation. 

Thus, at peace with God and the world, the farmer 

of Grand-Pre 
Lived on his sunny farm, and Evangeline governed 

his household. 
Many a youth, as he knelt in the church and opened 

his missal. 105 

Fixed his eyes upon her as the saint of his deepest 

devotion ; 
Happy was he who might touch her hand or the hem 

of her garment ! 
Many a suitor came to her door, by the darkness be- 
friended. 
And, as he knocked and waited to hear the sound of 

her footsteps. 
Knew not which beat the louder, his heart or the 

knocker of iron ; 110 

Or, at the joyous feast of the Patron Saint of the village, 
Bolder grew, and pressed her hand in the dance as he 

whispered 



Section I] EVANGELINE 33 

Hurried words of love, that seemed a part of the 

music. 
But among all who came young Gabriel only was 

welcome ; 
Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the black- 
smith, 115 
Who was a mighty man in the village, and honored 

of all men ; 
For since the birth of time, throughout all ages and 

nations. 
Has the craft of the smith been held in repute by the 

people. 
Basil was Benedict's friend. Their children from 

earliest childhood 
Grew up together as brother and sister ; and Father 

Felician, 120 

Priest and pedagogue both in the village, had taught 

them their letters 
Out of the selfsame book, with the hymns of the 

church and the plain-song. 
But when the hymn was sung, and the daily lesson 

completed. 
Swiftly they hurried away to the forge of Basil the 

blacksmith. 
There at the door they stood, with wondering eyes to 

behold him 125 

Take in his leathern lap the hoof of the horse as a 

plaything. 
Nailing the shoe in its place ; while near him the tire 

of the cart-wheel 
Lay like a fiery snake, coiled round in a circle of 

cinders. 
Oft on autumnal eves, when without in the gathering 

darkness 
Bursting with light seemed the smithy, through every 

cranny and crevice, 130 

Warm by the forge within they watched the laboring 

bellows. 
And as its panting ceased, and the sparks expired in 

the ashes. 



34 EVANGELINE [Part I 

Merrily laughed, and said they were nuns going into 

the chapel. 
Oft on sledges in winter, as swift as the swoop of the 

eagle, 
Down the hillside bounding, they glided away o'er the 

meadow. 135 

Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests 

on the rafters. 
Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone, which 

the swallow 
Brings from the shore of the sea to restore the sight 

of its fledglings ; 
Lucky was he who found that stone in the nest of the 

swallow ! 
Thus passed a few swift years, and they no longer 

were children. 140 

He was a valiant youth, and his face, like the face of 

the morning. 
Gladdened the earth with its light, and ripened 

thought into action. 
She was a woman now, with the heart and hopes of a 

woman. 
" Sunshine of Saint Eulalie " was she called ; for that 

was the sunshine 
Which, as the farmers believed, would load their 

orchards with apples ; 145 

She too would bring to her husband's house delight 

and abundance. 
Filling it full of love and the ruddy faces of children. 

II 

Now had the season returned, when the nights 

grow colder and longer. 
And the retreating sun the sign of the Scorpion enters. 
Birds of passage sailed through the leaden air, from 

the ice-bound, 150 

Desolate northern bays to the shores of tropical islands. 
Harvests were gathered in ; and wild with the winds 

of September 




FAIR IN SOOTH WAS THE MAIDEN 



Section H] EVANGELINE 35 

Wrestled the trees of the forest, as Jacob of old with 
the angel. 

All the signs foretold a winter long and inclement. 

Bees, with prophetic instinct of want, had hoarded 
their honey 155 

Till the hives overflowed ; and the Indian hunters as- 
serted 

Cold would the winter be, for thick was the fur of 
the foxes. 

Such was the advent of autumn. Then followed that 
beautiful season, 

Called by the pious Acadian peasants the Summer of 
All-Saints ! 

Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light ; 
and the landscape 160 

Lay as if new-created in all the freshness of child- 
hood. 

Peace seemed to reign upon earth, and the restless 
heart of the ocean 

Was for a moment consoled. All sounds were in har- 
mony blended. 

Voices of children at play, the crowing of cocks in the 
farm-yards. 

Whir of wings in the drowsy air, and the cooing of 
pigeons, 165 

All were subdued and low as the murmurs of love, 
and the great sun 

Looked with the eye of love through the golden va- 
pors around him ; 

While arrayed in its robes of russet and scarlet and 
yellow. 

Bright with the sheen of the dew, each glittering tree 
of the forest 

Flashed like the plane-tree the Persian adorned with 
mantles and jewels. 170 

Now recommenced the reign of rest and affection 
and stillness. 
Day with its burden and heat had departed, and twi- 
light descending 



36 EVANGELINE [Part I 

Brought back the evening star to the sky, and the 
herds to the homestead. 

Pawing the ground they came, and resting their necks 
on each other, 

And with their nostrils distended inhaUng the fresh- 
ness of evening. 175 

Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline's beautiful 
heifer. 

Proud of her snow-white hide, and the ribbon that 
waved from her collar. 

Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of human 
affection. 

Then came the shepherd back with his bleating flocks 
from the seaside. 

Where was their favorite pasture. Behind them fol- 
lowed the watch-dog, 180 

Patient, full of importance, and grand in the pride of 
his instinct. 

Walking from side to side with a lordly air, and 
superbly 

Waving his bushy tail, and urging forward the strag- 
glers ; 

Regent of flocks was he when the shepherd slept; 
their protector, 

When from the forest at night, through the starry 
silence, the wolves howled. 185 

Late, with the rising moon, returned the wains from 
the marshes. 

Laden with briny hay, that filled the air with its 
odor. 

Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes 
and their fetlocks. 

While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and pon- 
derous saddles, 

Painted with brilUant dyes, and adorned with tassels 
of crimson, 190 

Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with 
blossoms. 

Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their 
udders 



Section II] EVANGELINE 37 

Unto the milkmaid's hand ; whilst loud and in regular 
cadence 

Into the sounding pails the foaming streamlets de- 
scended. 

Lowing of cattle and peals of laughter were heard in 
the farm-yard, 195 

Echoed back by the barns. Anon they sank into 
stillness : 

Heavily closed, with a jarring sound, the valves of the 
barn-doors. 

Rattled the wooden bars, and all for a season was silent. 

In-doors, warm by the wide-mouthed fireplace, idly 

the farmer 
Sat in his elbow-chair, and watched how the flames 

and the smoke- wreaths 200 

Struggled together hke foes in a burning city. Be- 
hind him. 
Nodding and mocking along the wall with gestures 

fantastic, 
Darted his own huge shadow, and vanished away into 

darkness. 
Faces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back of his arm- 
chair 
Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates 

on the dresser 205 

Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies 

the sunshine. 
Fragments of song the old man sang, and carols of 

Christmas. 
Such as at home, in the olden time, his fathers before 

him 
Sang in their Norman orchards and bright Burgun- 

dian vineyards. 
Close at her father's side was the gentle Evangeline 

seated, 210 

Spinning flax for the loom that stood in the corner 

behind her. 
Silent awhile were its treadles, at rest was its diligent 

shuttle, 



38 EVANGELINE [Part I 

While the monotonous drone of the wheel, like the 
drone of a bagpipe, 

Followed the old man's song, and united the fragments 
together. 

As in a church, when the chant of the choir at inter- 
vals ceases, 215 

Footfalls are heard in the aisles, or words of the priest 
at the altar. 

So, in each pause of the song, with measured motion 
the clock clicked. 

Thus as they sat, there were footsteps heard, and, 

suddenly lifted. 
Sounded the wooden latch, and the door swung back 

on its hinges. 
Benedict knew by the hob-nailed shoes it was Basil 

the blacksmith, 220 

And by her beating heart Evangeline knew who was 

with him. 
" Welcome ! " the farmer exclaimed, as their footsteps 

paused on the threshold, 
"Welcome, Basil, my friend! Come, take thy place 

on the settle 
Close by the chimney-side, which is always empty 

without thee ; 
Take from the shelf overhead thy pipe and the box 

of tobacco ; 225 

Never so much thyself art thou as when, through the 

curling 
Smoke of the pipe or the forge, thy friendly and jovial 

face gleams 
Round and red as the harvest moon through the mist 

of the marshes." 
Then, with a smile of content, thus answered Basil 

the blacksmith. 
Taking with easy air the accustomed seat by the fire- 
side : — 230 
" Benedict Bellefontaine, thou hast ever thy jest and 

thy ballad ! 



Section HJ EVANGELINE 39 

Ever in cheerfullest mood art thou, when others are 

filled with 
Gloomy forebodings of ill, and see only ruin before 

them. 
Happy art thou, as if every day thou hadst picked up 

a horseshoe." 
Pausing a moment, to take the pipe that Evangeline 

brought him, 235 

And with a coal from the embers had lighted, he 

slowly continued ; — 
" Four days now are passed since the English ships 

at their anchors 
Ride in the Gaspereau's mouth, with their cannon 

pointed against us. 
What their design may be is unknown ; but all are 

commanded 
On the morrow to meet in the church, where his 

Majesty's mandate 240 

Will be proclaimed as law in the land. Alas ! in the 

mean time 
Many surmises of evil alarm the hearts of the peo- 
ple." 
Then made answer the farmer: — "Perhaps some 

friendlier purpose 
Brings these ships to our shores. Perhaps the har- 
vests in England 
By untimely rains or untimelier heat have been 

blighted, 245 

And from our bursting barns they would feed their 

cattle and children." 
" Not so thinketh the folk in the village," said warmly 

the blacksmith. 
Shaking his head as in doubt ; then, heaving a sigh, 

he continued : — 
"Louisburg is not forgotten, nor Beau Sejour, nor 

Port Royal. 
Many already have fled to the forest, and lurk on its 

outskirts, 250 

Waiting with anxious hearts the dubious fate of to- 
morrow. 



40 EVANGELINE [Part I 

Arms have been taken from us, and warlike weapons 

of all kinds ; 
Nothing is left but the blacksmith's sledge and the 

scythe of the mower." 
Then with a pleasant smile made answer the jovial 

farmer : — 
" Safer are we unarmed, in the midst of our jlocks 

and our cornfields, 255 

Safer within these peaceful dikes besieged by the 

ocean, 
Than our fathers in forts, besieged by the enemy's 

cannon. 
Fear no evil, my friend, and to-night may no shadow 

of sorrow 
Fall on this house and hearth ; for this is the night 

of the contract. 
Built are the house and the barn. The merry lads of 

the village 260 

Strongly have built them and well ; and, breaking the 

glebe round about them. 
Filled the barn with hay, and the house with food for 

a twelvemonth. 
Rene Leblanc will be here anon, with his papers and 

inkhorn. 
Shall we not then be glad, and rejoice in the joy of 

our children ? " 
As apart by the window she stood, with her hand in 

her lover's, 265 

Blushing Evangeline heard the words that her father 

had spoken. 
And, as they died on his lips, the worthy notary entered. 

Ill 

Bent like a laboring oar, that toils in the surf of 
the ocean. 

Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the no- 
tary public ; 

Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the 
maize, hung 270 



Section IH] EVANGELINE 41 

Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and 
glasses with horn bows 

Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom supernal. 

Father of twenty children was he, and more than a 
hundred 

Children's children rode on his knee, and heard his 
great watch tick. 

Four long years in the times of the war had he lan- 
guished a captive, 275 

Suffering much in an old French fort as the friend of 
the EngUsh. 

Now, though warier grown, without all guile or sus- 
picion. 

Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and 
childlike. 

He was beloved by all, and most of all by the chil- 
dren; 

For he told them tales of the Loup-garou in the for- 
est, 280 

And of the gobhn that came in the night to water the 
horses, 

And of the white Letiche, the ghost of a child who 
unchristened 

Died, and was doomed to haunt unseen the chambers 
of children ; 

And how on Christmas eve the oxen talked in the 
stable, 

And how the fever was cured by a spider shut up in 
a nutshell, 285 

And of the marvellous powers of four-leaved clover 
and horseshoes. 

With whatsoever else was writ in the lore of the village. 

Then up rose from his seat by the fireside Basil the 
blacksmith, 

Knocked from his pipe the ashes, and slowly extend- 
ing his right hand, 

"Father Leblanc," he exclaimed, "thou hast heard 
the talk in the village, 290 

And, perchance, canst tell us some news of these ships 
and their errand." 



42 EVANGELINE [Part I 

Then with modest demeanor made answer the notary 
public, — 

" Gossip enough have I heard, in sooth, yet am never 
the wiser ; 

And what their errand may be I know no better than 
others. 

Yet am I not of those who imagine some evil inten- 
tion 295 

Brings them here, for we are at peace ; and why then 
molest us ? " 

" God's name ! " shouted the hasty and somewhat iras- 
cible blacksmith ; 

" Must we in all things look for the how, and the why, 
and the wherefore ? 

Daily injustice is done, and might is the right of the 
strongest ! " 

But, without heeding his warmth, continued the 
notary pubUc, — 300 

"Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally justice 

Triumphs ; and well I remember a story, that often 
consoled me. 

When as a captive I lay in the old French fort at 
Port Royal." 

This was the old man's favorite tale, and he loved to 
repeat it 

When his neighbors complained that any injustice 
was done them. 305 

" Once in an ancient city, whose name I no longer re- 
member. 

Raised aloft on a column, a brazen statue of Justice 

Stood in the public square, upholding the scales in its 
left hand. 

And in its right a sword, as an emblem that justice 
presided 

Over the laws of the land, and the hearts and homes 
of the people. 310 

Even the birds had built their nests in the scales of 
the balance. 

Having no fear of the sword that flashed in the sun- 
shine above them. 



Section III] . EVANGELINE 43 

But in the course of time the laws of the land were 
corrupted ; 

Might took the place of right, and the weak were 

oppressed, and the mighty- 
Ruled with an iron rod. Then it chanced in a noble- 
man's palace 315 

That a necklace of pearls was lost, and ere long a sus- 
picion 

Fell on an orphan girl who lived as maid in the house- 
hold. 

She, after form of trial condemned to die on the scaffold. 

Patiently met her doom at the foot of the statue of 
Justice. 

As to her Father in heaven her innocent spirit as- 
cended, 320 

Lo ! o'er the city a tempest rose ; and the bolts of the 
thunder 

Smote the statue of bronze, and hurled in wrath from 
its left hand 

Down on the pavement below the clattering scales of 
the balance. 

And in the hollow thereof was found the nest of a 
magpie. 

Into whose clay-built walls the necklace of pearls was 
inwoven." 325 

Silenced, but not convinced, when the story wa^ 
ended, the blacksmith 

Stood Uke a man who fain would speak, but flndeth 
no language ; 

All his thoughts were congealed into lines on his face, 
as the vapors 

Freeze in fantastic shapes on the window-panes in the 
winter. 

Then Evangeline lighted the brazen lamp on the 
table, 330 

Filled, till it overflowed, the pewter tankard with 
home-brewed 

Nut-brown ale, that was famed for its strength in the 
village of Grand-Pre ; 



44 EVANGELINE [Part I 

While from his pocket the notary drew his papers 
and inkhorn. 

Wrote with a steady hand the date and the age of the 
parties, 

Naming the dower of the bride in flocks of sheep and 
in cattle. 335 

Orderly all things proceeded, and duly and well were 
completed. 

And the great seal of the law was set like a sun on 
the margin. 

Then from his leathern pouch the farmer threw on 
the table 

Three times the old man's fee in solid pieces of sil- 
ver; 

And the notary rising, and blessing the bride and 
bridegroom, 340 

Lifted aloft the tankard of ale and drank to their 
welfare. 

Wiping the foam from his lip, he solemnly bowed and 
departed. 

While in silence the others sat and mused by the fire- 
side. 

Till Evangeline brought the draught-board out of its 
corner. 

Soon was the game begun. In friendly contention 
the old men 345 

Laughed at each lucky hit, or unsuccessful manoeu- 
vre. 

Laughed when a man was crowned, or a breach was 
made in the king-row. 

Meanwhile apart, in the twilight gloom of a window's 
embrasure. 

Sat the lovers and whispered together, beholding the 
moon rise 

Over the pallid sea and the silvery mist of the mead- 
ows. 350 

Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of 
heaven, 

Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the 
angels. 



Section III] EVANGELINE 45 

Thus was the evening passed. Anon the bell from 

the belfry- 
Rang out the hour of nine, the village curfew, and 

straightway- 
Rose the guests and departed ; and silence reigned in 

the household. 355 

Many a farewell word and sweet good-night on the 

door-step 
Lingered long in Evangeline's heart, and filled it with 

gladness. 
Carefully then were covered the embers that glowed 

on the hearthstones, 
And on the oaken stairs resounded the tread of the 

farmer. 
Soon with a soundless step the foot of Evangeline fol- 
lowed. 360 
Up the staircase moved a luminous space in the dark- 
ness, 
Lighted less by the lamp than the shining face of the 

maiden. 
Silent she passed through the hall, and entered the 

door of her chamber. 
Simple that chamber was, with its curtains of white 

and its clothes-press 
Ample and high, on whose spacious shelves were care- 
fully folded 365 
Linen and woollen stuflfs, by the hand of Evangeline 

woven. 
This was the precious dower she would bring to her 

husband in marriage. 
Better than flocks and herds, being proofs of her skill 

as a housewife. 
Soon she extinguished her lamp, for the mellow and 

radiant moonlight 
Streamed through the windows, and lighted the room, 

till the heart of the maiden 370 

Swelled and obeyed its power, like the tremulous tides 

of the ocean. 
Ah! she was fair, exceeding fair to behold, as she 

stood with 



46 EVANGELINE [Part I 

Naked snow-white feet on the gleaming floor of her 

chamber ! 
Little she dreamed that below, among the trees of the 

orchard, 
Waited her lover and watched for the gleam of her 

lamp and her shadow. 375 

Yet were her thoughts of him, and at times a feeling 

of sadness 
Passed o'er her soul, as the sailing shade of clouds in 

the moonlight 
Flitted across the floor and darkened the room for a 

moment. 
And, as she gazed from the window, she saw serenely 

the moon pass 
Forth from the folds of a cloud, and one star follow 

her footsteps, 380 

As out of Abraham's tent young Ishmael wandered 

with Hagar. 

IV 

Pleasantly rose next morn the sun on the village of 

Grand-Pre. 
Pleasantly gleamed in the soft, sweet air the Basin of 

Minas, 
Where the ships, with their wavering shadows, were 

riding at anchor. 
Life had long been astir in the village, and clamorous 

labor 385 

Knocked with its hundred hands at the golden gates 

of the morning. 
Now from the country around, from the farms and 

neighboring hamlets. 
Came m their holiday dresses the blithe Acadian 

peasants. 
Many a glad good-morrow and jocund laugh from the 

young folk 
Made the bright air brighter, as up from the numer- 
ous meadows, 390 



Section IV] EVANGELINE 47 

Where no path could be seen but the track of wheels 
in the greensward, 

Group after group appeared, and joined, or passed on 
the highway. 

Long ere noon, in the village all sounds of labor were 
silenced. 

Thronged were the streets with people ; and noisy 
groups at the house-doors 

Sat in the cheerful sun, and rejoiced and gossiped to- 
gether. 395 

Every house was an inn, where all were welcomed and 
feasted ; 

For with this simple people, who lived like brothers 
together, 

All things were held in common, and what one had 
was another's. 

Yet imder Benedict's roof hospitality seemed more 
abundant : 

For Evangeline stood among the guests of her 
father ; 400 

Bright was her face with smiles, and words of wel- 
come and gladness 

Fell from her beautiful lips, and blessed the cup as 
she gave it. 

Under the open sky, in the odorous air of the orchard, 

Stript of its golden fruit, was spread the feast of be- 
trothal. 

There in the shade of the porch were the priest and 
the notary seated ; 405 

There good Benedict sat, and sturdy Basil the black- 
smith. 

Not far withdrawn from these, by the cider-press and 
the beehives, 

Michael the fiddler was placed, with the gayest of 
hearts and of waistcoats. 

Shadow and light from the leaves alternately played 
on his snow-white 

Hair, as it waved in the wind ; and the jolly face of 
the fiddler 410 



48 EVANGELINE [Part I 

Glowed like a living coal when the ashes are blown 

from the embers. 
Gayly the old man sang to the vibrant sound of his 

fiddle, 
Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres^ and Le Carillon de 

Dunkerque^ 
And anon with his wooden shoes beat time to the 

music. 
Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying 

dances 415 

Under the orchard-trees and down the path to the 

meadows ; 
Old folk and young together, and children mingled 

among them. 
Fairest of all the maids was Evangeline, Benedict's 

daughter ! 
Noblest of all the youths was Gabriel, son of the 

blacksmith ! 

So passed the morning away. And lo ! with a sum- 
mons sonorous 420 

Sounded the bell from its tower, and over the mead- 
ows a drum beat. 

Thronged ere long was the church with men. With- 
out, in the churchyard. 

Waited the women. They stood by the graves, and 
hung on the headstones 

Garlands of autumn leaves and evergreens fresh from 
the forest. 

Then came the guard from the ships, and marching 
proudly among them 425 

Entered the sacred portal. Witb loud and dissonant 
clangor 

Echoed the sound of their brazen drums from ceiling 
and casement, — 

Echoed a moment only, and slowly the ponderous portal 

Closed, and in silence the crowd awaited the will of 
the soldiers. 

Then uprose their commander, and spake from the 
steps of the altar, 430 



Section IV] EVANGELINE 49 

Holding aloft in his hands, with its seals, the royal 

commission. 
" You are convened this day," he said, " by his Maj- 
esty's orders. 
Clement and kind has he been; but how you have 

answered his kindness 
Let your own hearts reply ! To my natural make and 

my temper 
Painful the task is I do, which to you I know must 

be grievous. 435 

Yet must I bow and obey, and deliver the will of our 

monarch : 
Namely, that all your lands, and dwellings, and cattle 

of all kinds 
Forfeited be to the crown ; and that you yourselves 

from this province 
Be transported to other lands. God grant you may 

dwell there 
Ever as faithful subjects, a happy and peaceable people i 
Prisoners now I declare you, for such is his Majesty's 

pleasure ! " 441 

As, when the air is serene in the sultry solstice of 

summer. 
Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the 

hailstones 
Beats down the farmer's corn in the field, and shatters 

his windows. 
Hiding the sun, and strewing the ground with thatch 

from the house-roofs, 445 

Bellowing fly the herds, and seek to break their en- 
closures ; 
So on the hearts of the people descended the words of 

the speaker. 
Silent a moment they stood in speechless wonder, and 

then rose 
Louder and ever louder a wail of sorrow and anger. 
And, by one impulse moved, they madly rushed to the 

door-way. 450 

Vain was the hope of escape; and cries and fierce 

imprecations 



50 EVANGELINE [Part I 

Rang through the house of prayer ; and high o'er the 

heads of the others 
Rose, with his arms uplifted, the figure of Basil the 

blacksmith, 
As, on a stormy sea, a spar is tossed by the billows. 
Flushed was his face and distorted with passion ; and 

wildly he shouted, — 455 

" Down with the tyrants of England ! we never have 

sworn them allegiance ! 
Death to these foreign soldiers, who seize on our 

homes and our harvests ! " 
More he fain would have said, but the merciless hand 

of a soldier 
Smote him upon the mouth, and dragged him down to 

the pavement. 

In the midst of the strife and tumult of angry con- 
tention, 460 

Lo ! the door of the chancel opened, and Father Felician 

Entered, with serious mien, and ascended the steps of 
the altar. 

Raising his rev-erend hand, with a gesture he awed 
into silence 

All that clamorous throng ; and thus he spake to his 
people ; 

Deep were his tones and solemn ; in accents measured 
and mournful 465 

Spake he, as, after the tocsin's alarum, distinctly the 
clock strikes. 

"What is this that ye do, my children? what mad- 
ness has seized you? 

Forty years of my life have I labored among you, and 
taught you. 

Not in word alone, but in deed, to love one another ! 

Is this the fruit of my toils, of my vigils and prayers 
and privations ? 470 

Have you so soon forgotten all lessons of love and 
forgiveness ? 

This is the house of the Prince of Peace, and would 
you profane it 



Section IV] EVANGELINE 51 

Thus with violent deeds and hearts overflowing with 
hatred? 

Lo ! where the crucified Christ from His cross is gaz- 
ing upon you ! 

See ! in those sorrowful eyes what meekness and holy 
compassion ! 475 

Hark! how those lips still repeat the prayer, 'O 
Father, forgive them ! ' 

Let us repeat that prayer in the hour when the wicked 
assail us. 

Let us repeat it now, and say, 'O Father, forgive 
them!"' 

Few were his words of rebuke, but deep in the hearts 
of his people 

Sank they, and sobs of contrition succeeded the pas- 
sionate outbreak, 480 

While they repeated his prayer, and said, " O Father, 
forgive them ! " 

Then came the evening service. The tapers gleamed 

from the altar ; 
Fervent and deep was the voice of the priest, and the 

people responded. 
Not with their lips alone, but their hearts ; and the 

Ave Maria 
Sang they, and fell on their knees, and their souls, 

with devotion translated, 485 

Rose on the ardor of prayer, like Elijah ascending to 

heaven. 

Meanwhile had spread in the village the tidings of 

ill, and on all sides 
Wandered, wailing, from house to house the women 

and children. 
Long at her father's door Evangeline stood, with her 

right hand 
Shielding her eyes from the level rays of the sun, 

that, descending, 490 

Lighted the village street with mysterious splendor, 

and roofed each 



52 EVANGELINE [Part I 

Peasant's cottage with golden thatch, and emblazoned 
its windows. 

Long within had been spread the snow-white cloth on 
the table ; 

There stood the wheaten loaf, and the honey fragrant 
with wild flowers ; 

There stood the tankard of ale, and the cheese fresh 
brought from the dairy ; 495 

And at the head of the board the great arm-chair of 
the farmer. 

Thus did Evangeline wait at her father's door, as the 
sunset 

Threw the long shadows of trees o'er the broad am- 
brosial meadows. 

Ah ! on her spirit within a deeper shadow had fallen, 

And from the fields of her soul a fragrance celestial 
ascended, — 500 

Charity, meekness, love, and hope, and forgiveness, 
and patience ! 

Then, all forgetful of self, she wandered into the vil- 
lage. 

Cheering with looks and words the mournful hearts of 
the women. 

As o'er the darkening fields with lingering steps they 
departed. 

Urged by their household cares, and the weary feet of 
their children. 505 

Down sank the great red sun, and in golden, glimmer- 
ing vapors 

Veiled the light of his face, like the Prophet descend- 
ing from Sinai. 

Sweetly over the village the bell of the Angelus 
sounded. 

Meanwhile, amid the gloom, by the church Evange- 
line lingered. 

All was silent within ; and in vain at the door and the 
windows 510 

Stood she, and listened and looked, until, overcome by 
emotion. 



Section V] EVANGELINE 53 

"Gabriel!" cried she aloud with tremulous voice; 

but no answer 
Came from the graves of the dead, nor the gloomier 

grave of the living. 
Slowly at length she returned to the tenantless house 

of her father. 
Smouldered the fire on the hearth, on the board was 

the supper untasted. 515 

Empty and drear was each room, and haunted with 

phantoms of terror. 
Sadly echoed her step on the stair and the floor of her 

chamber. 
In the dead of the night she heard the disconsolate 

rain fall 
Loud on the withered leaves of the sycamore-tree by 

the window. 
Keenly the lightning flashed; and the voice of the 

echoing thunder 520 

Told her that God was in heaven, and governed the 

world He created ! 
Then she remembered the tale she had heard of the 

justice of Heaven ; 
Soothed was her troubled soul, and she peacefully 

slumbered till morning. 



Four times the sun had risen and set; and now on 
the fifth day 

Cheerily called the cock to the sleeping maids of the 
farm-house. 525 

Soon o'er the yellow fields, in silent and mournful pro- 
cession, 

Came from the neighboring hamlets and farms the 
Acadian women. 

Driving in ponderous wains their household goods to 
the sea-shore. 

Pausing and looking back to gaze once more on their 
dwellings. 



54 EVANGELINE [Part I 

Ere they were shut from sight by the winding road and 
the woodland. 530 

Close at their sides their children ran, and urged on 
the oxen, 

While in their little hands they clasped some frag- 
ments of playthings. 

Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth they hurried; and 

there on the sea-beach 
Piled in confusion lay the household goods of the 

peasants. 
All day long between the shore and the ships did the 

boats ply; 535 

All day long the wains came laboring down from the 

village. 
Late in the afternoon, when the sun was near to his 

setting. 
Echoed far o'er the fields came the roll of drums from 

the churchyard. 
Thither the women and children thronged. On a sud- 
den the church-doors 
Opened, and forth came the guard, and marching in 

gloomy procession 540 

Followed the long-imprisoned, but patient, Acadian 

farmers. 
Even as pilgrims, who journey afar from their homes 

and their country. 
Sing as they go, and in singing forget they are weary 

and wayworn. 
So with songs on their lips the Acadian peasants de- 
scended 
Down from the church to the shore, amid their wives 

and their daughters. 545 

Foremost the young men came ; and, raising together 

their voices. 
Sang with tremulous lips a chant of the Catholic 

Missions : — 
"Sacred heart of the Saviour! O inexhaustible fountain! 
Fill our hearts this day with strength and submission 

and patience ! " 




SPEAKING WORDS OF ENDEARMENT, WHERE WORDS OF COM- 
FORT AVAILED NOT 



Section V] EVANGELINE 55 

Then the old men, as they marched, and the women 
that stood by the wayside 550 

Jomed in the sacred psalm, and the birds in the sun- 
shine above them 

Mingled their notes therewith, like voices of spirits 
departed. 

Half-way down to the shore Evangeline waited in 
silence. 

Not overcome with grief, but strong in the hour of 
affliction, — 

Calmly and sadly she waited, until the procession 
approached her, 555 

And she beheld the face of Gabriel pale with emotion. 

Tears then filled her eyes, and, eagerly running to 
meet him. 

Clasped she his hands, and laid her head on his shoul- 
der, and whispered, — 

*' Gabriel ! be of good cheer ! for if we love one an- 
other 

Nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever mischances 
may happen ! " 560 

Smiling she spake these words ; then suddenly paused, 
for her father 

Saw she, slowly advancing. Alas ! how changed was 
his aspect ! 

Gone was the glow from his cheek, and the fire from 
his eye, and his footstep 

Heavier seemed with the weight of the heavy heart 
m his bosom. 

But with a smile and a sigh, she clasped his neck and 
embraced him, 565 

Speaking words of endearment where words of com- 
fort availed not. 

Thus to the Gasper eau's mouth moved on that mourn- 
ful procession. 

There disorder prevailed, and the tumult and stir 
of embarking. 
Busily plied the freighted boats ; and in the confusion 



56 EVANGELINE [Part I 

Wives were torn from their husbands, and mothers, 

too late, saw their children 570 

Left on the land, extending their arms, with wildest 

entreaties. 
So unto separate ships were Basil and Gabriel carried. 
While in despair on the shore Evangeline stood with 

her father. 
Half the task was not done when the sun went down, 

and the twilight 
Deepened and darkened around; and in haste the 

refluent ocean 575 

Fled away from the shore, and left the Ime of the 

sand-beach 
Covered with waifs of the tide, with kelp and the slip- 
pery sea- weed. 
Farther back in the midst of the household goods and 

the wagons. 
Like to a gypsy camp, or a leaguer after a battle. 
All escape cut ofif by the sea, and the sentinels near 

them, 580 

Lay encamped for the night the houseless Acadian 

farmers. 
Back to its nethermost caves retreated the bellowing 

ocean. 
Dragging adown the beach the rattling pebbles, and 

leaving 
Inland and far up the shore the stranded boats of the 

sailors. 
Then, as the night descended, the herds returned from 

their pastures ; 585 

Sweet was the moist still air with the odor of milk 

from their udders ; 
Lowing they waited, and long, at the well-known bars 

of the farm-yard, — 
Waited and looked in vain for the voice and the hand 

of the milkmaid. 
Silence reigned in the streets ; from the church no 

Angelus sounded. 
Rose no smoke from the roofs, and gleamed no lights 

from the windows. 590 



Section VJ EVANGELINE 57 

But on the shores meanwhile the evening fires had 

been kindled, 
Built of the drift-wood thrown on the sands from 

wrecks in the tempest. 
Round them shapes of gloom and sorrowful faces were 

gathered. 
Voices of women were heard, and of men, and the 

crying of children. 
Onward from fire to fire, as from hearth to hearth in 

his parish, 595 

Wandered the faithful priest, consoling and blessing 

and cheering, 
Like unto shipwrecked Paul on Melita's delicate sea- 
shore. 
Thus he approached the place where Evangeline sat 

with her father, 
And in the fiickering light beheld the face of the old 

man. 
Haggard and hollow and wan, and without either 

thought or emotion, 600 

E'en as the face of a clock from which the hands have 

been taken. 
Vainly Evangeline strove with words and caresses to 

cheer him. 
Vainly offered him food ; yet he moved not, he looked 

not, he spake not. 
But, with a vacant stare, ever gazed at the flickering 

fire-light. 
''^ Benedicite ! '^'' murmured the priest, in tones of com- 
passion. 605 
More he fain would have said, but his heart was full, 

and his accents 
Faltered and paused on his lips, as the feet of a child 

on a threshold. 
Hushed by the scene he beholds, and the awful pres- 
ence of sorrow. 
Silently, therefore, he laid his hand on the head of 

the maiden. 
Raising his tearful eyes to the silent stars that above 

them 610 



58 EVANGELINE [Part I 

Moved on their way, unperturbed by the wrongs and 

sorrows of mortals. 
Then sat he down at her side, and they wept together 

in silence. 

Suddenly rose from the south a light, as in autumn 
the blood-red 

Moon climbs the crystal walls of heaven, and o'er the 
horizon 

Titan-like stretches its hundred hands upon moun- 
tain and meadow, 615 

Seizing the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge 
shadows together. 

Broader and ever broader it gleamed on the roofs of 
the village. 

Gleamed on the sky and the sea, and the ships that 
lay in the roadstead. 

Columns of shining smoke uprose, and flashes of 
flame were 

Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, like the 
quivering hands of a martyr. 620 

Then as the wind seized the gleeds and the burning 
thatch, and, uplifting. 

Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a 
hundred house-tops 

Started the sheeted smoke with flashes of flame inter- 
mingled. 

These things beheld in dismay the crowd on the 

shore and on shipboard. 
Speechless at first they stood, then cried aloud in 

their anguish, 625 

" We shall behold no more our homes in the village 

of Grand-Pre!" 
Loud on a sudden the cocks began to crow in the 

farm-yards. 
Thinking the day had dawned ; and anon the lowing 

of cattle 
Came on the evening breeze, by the barking of dogs 

interrupted. 



Section V] EVANGELINE . 59 

Then rose a sound of dread, such as startles the sleep- 
ing encampments 630 

Far in the western prairies or forests that skirt the 
Nebraska, 

When the wild horses affrighted sweep by with 
the speed of the whirlwind. 

Or the loud bellowing herds of buffaloes rush to 
the river. 

Such was the sound that arose on the night, as the 
herds and the horses 

Broke through their folds and fences, and madly 
rushed o'er the meadows. 635 

Overwhelmed with the sight, yet speechless, the 

priest and the maiden 
Gazed on the scene of terror that reddened and 

widened before them ; 
And as they turned at length to speak to their silent 

companion, 
Lo! from his seat he had fallen, and stretched abroad 

on the seashore 
Motionless lay his form, from which the soul had de- 
parted. 640 
Slowly the priest uplifted the lifeless head, and the 

maiden 
Knelt at her father's side, and wailed aloud in her 

terror. 
Then in a swoon she sank, and lay with her head on 

his bosom. 
Through the long night she lay in deep, oblivious 

slumber ; 
And when she woke from the trance, she beheld a 

multitude near her. 645 

Faces of friends she beheld, that were mournfully 

gazing upon her. 
Pallid, with tearful eyes, and looks of saddest com- 
passion. 
Still the blaze of the burning village illumined the 

landscape. 



60 EVANGELINE [Part I 

Reddened the sky overhead, and gleamed on the 

faces around her. 
And like the day of doom it seemed to her wavering 

senses. 650 

Then a familiar voice she heard, as it said to the peo- 
ple,— 
"Let us bury him here by the sea. When a happier 

season 
Brings us again to our homes from the unknown 

land of our exile. 
Then shall his sacred dust be piously laid in the 

churchyard." 
Such were the words of the priest. And there in 

haste by the sea-side, 655 

Having the glare of the burning village for funeral 

torches. 
But without bell or book, they buried the farmer of 

Grand-Pre. 
And as the voice of the priest repeated the service of 

sorrow, 
Lo ! with a mournful sound like the voice of a vast 

congregation, 
Solemnly answered the sea, and mingled its roar with 

the dirges. 660 

'T was the returning tide, that afar from the waste 

of the ocean. 
With the first dawn of the day, came heaving and 

hurrying landward. 
Then recommenced once more the stir and noise of 

embarking; 
And with the ebb of the tide the ships sailed out of 

the harbor. 
Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, and the 

village in ruins. 665 



Section I] EVANGELINE 61 

PART THE SECOND 

I 

Many a weary year had passed since the burning of 
Grand-Pre, 

When on the falling tide the freighted vessels de- 
parted, 

Bearing a nation, with all its household gods, into exile. 

Exile without an end, and without an example in 
story. 

Far asunder, on separate coasts, the Acadians 
landed ; 670 

Scattered were they, like flakes of snow, when the 
wind from the northeast 

Strikes aslant through the fogs that darken the Banks 
of Newfoundland. 

Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wandered from 
city to city. 

From the cold lakes of the North to sultry Southern 
savannas, — 

From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where 
the Father of Waters 675 

Seizes the hills in his hands, and drags them down to 
the ocean. 

Deep in their sands to bury the scattered bones of the 
mammoth. 

Friends they sought and homes ; and many, despair- 
ing, heart-broken. 

Asked of the earth but a grave, and no longer a friend 
nor a fireside. 

Written their history stands on tablets of stone in the 
churchyards. 680 

Long among them was seen a maiden who waited and 
wandered. 

Lowly and meek in spirit, and patiently suffering all 
things. 

Fair was she and young; but, alas! before her ex- 
tended, 



62 ' " EVANGELINE [Part II 

Dreary and vast and silent, the desert of life, with its 
pathway 

Marked by the graves of those who had sorrowed and 
suffered before her, 685 

Passions long extinguished, and hopes long dead and 
abandoned. 

As the emigrant's way o'er the Western desert is 
marked by 

Camp-fires long consumed, and bones that bleach in 
the sunshine. 

Something there was in her life incomplete, imperfect, 
unfinished ; 

As if a morning of June, with all its music and sun- 
shine, 690 

Suddenly paused in the sky, and, fading, slowly de- 
scended 

Into the east again, from whence it late had arisen. 

Sometimes she lingered in towns, till, urged by the 
fever within her. 

Urged by a restless longing, the hunger and thirst of 
the spirit, 

She would commence again her endless search and 
endeavor ; 695 

Sometimes in churchyards strayed, and gazed on the 
crosses and tombstones. 

Sat by some nameless grave, and thought that perhaps 
in its bosom 

He was already at rest, and she longed to slumber be- 
side him. 

Sometimes a rumor, a hearsay, an inarticulate whis- 
per. 

Came with its airy hand to point and beckon her for- 
ward. 700 

Sometimes she spake with those who had seen her be- 
loved and known him, 

But it was long ago, in some far-off place or forgotten. 

" Gabriel Lajeunesse ! " they said ; " Oh, yes ! we have 
seen him. 

He was with Basil the blacksmith, and both have gone 
to the prairies ; 



Section I] EVANGELINE 63 

Coureurs-des-bois are they, and famous hunters and 

trappers." 705 

*' Gabriel Lajeunesse!" said others; ''Oh, yes! we 

have seen him. 
He is a voyageur in the lowlands of Louisiana." 
Then would they say, " Dear child ! why dream and 

wait for him longer ? 
Are there not other youths as fair as Gabriel ? others 
Who have hearts as tender and true, and spirits as 

loyal ? 710 

Here is Baptiste Leblanc, the notary's son, who has 

loved thee 
Many a tedious year ; come, give him thy hand and be 

happy ! 
Thou art too fair to be left to braid Saint Catherine's 

tresses." 
Then would Evangeline answer, serenely but sadly^ 

"I cannot! 
Whither my heart has gone, there follows my hand,. 

and not elsewhere. 715 

For when the heart goes before, like a lamp, and 

illumines the pathway. 
Many things are made clear, that else lie hidden in 

darkness." 
Thereupon the priest, her friend and father con- 
fessor, 
Said, with a smile, ''O daughter! thy God thus- 

speaketh within thee ! 
Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was 

wasted; 720 

If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, re- 
turning 
Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full 

of refreshment ; 
That which the fountain sends forth returns again to 

the fountain. 
Patience ; accomplish thy labor ; accomplish thy work 

of affection ! 
Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance 

is godlike. 725 



64 EVANGELINE [Part II 

Therefore accomplish thy labor of love, till the heart 

is made godlike, 
Purified, strengthened, perfected, and rendered more 

worthy of heaven ! " 
Cheered by the good man's words, Evangeline labored 

and waited. 
Still in her heart she heard the funeral dirge of the 

ocean. 
But with its sound there was mingled a voice that 

whispered, " Despair not ! " 730 

Thus did that poor soul wander in want and cheer- 
less discomfort. 
Bleeding, barefooted, over the shards and thorns of 

existence. 
Let me essay, O Muse ! to follow the wanderer's foot- 
steps ; — 
Not through each devious path, each changeful year 

of existence ; 
But as a traveller follows a streamlet's course through 

the valley : 735 

Far from its margin at times, and seeing the gleam of 

its water 
Here and there, in some open space, and at intervals 

only ; 
Then drawing nearer its banks, through sylvan glooms 

that conceal it. 
Though he behold it not, he can hear its continuous 

murmur; 
Happy, at length, if he find a spot where it reaches 

an outlet. 740 

II 

It was the month of May. Far down the Beautiful 
River, 
Past the Ohio shore and past the mouth of the Wabash, 
Into the golden stream of the broad and swift Mis- 
sissippi, 
Floated a cumbrous boat, that was rowed by Acadian 
boatmen. 



Section II] EVANGELINE 65 

It was a band of exiles : a raft, as it were, from the 
shipwrecked 745 

Nation, scattered along the coast, now floating together, 

Bound by the bonds of a common belief and a com- 
mon misfortune ; 

Men and women and children, who, guided by hope 
or by hearsay. 

Sought for their kith and their kin among the few- 
acred farmers 

On the Acadian coast, and the prairies of fair Ope- 
lousas. 750 

With them Evangeline went, and her guide, the 
Father Felician. 

Onward o'er sunken sands, through a wilderness 
sombre with forests. 

Day after day they glided adown the turbulent river ; 

Night after night, by their blazing fires, encamped on 

^ its borders. 

Now through rushing chutes, among green islands, 
where plumelike 755 

Cotton-trees nodded their shadowy crests, they swept 
with the current, 

Then emerged into broad lagoons, where silvery sand- 
bars 

Lay in the stream, and along the wimpling waves of 
their margin. 

Shining with snow-white plumes, large flocks of pel- 
icans waded. 

Level the landscape grew, and along the shores of the 
river, _ 760 

Shaded by china-trees, in the midst of luxuriant gar- 
dens, 

Stood the houses of planters, with negro cabins and 
dove-cots. 

They were approaching the region where reigns per- 
petual summer. 

Where through the Golden Coast, and groves of 
orange and citron. 

Sweeps with majestic curve the river away to the 
eastward. 765 



66 EVANGELINE [Part II 

They, too, swerved from their course ; and, entering 

the Bayou of Plaquemine, 
Soon were lost in a maze of sluggish and devious 

waters, 
Which, like a network of steel, extended in every 

direction. 
Over their heads the towering and tenebrous boughs 

of the cypress 
Met in a dusky arch, and trailing mosses in mid- 
air 770 
Waved like banners that hang on the walls of ancient 

cathedrals. 
Deathlike the silence seemed, and unbroken, save by 

the herons 
Home to their roots in the cedar-trees returning at 

sunset. 
Or by the owl, as he greeted the moon with demoniac 

laughter. 
Lovely the moonlight was as it glanced and gleamed 

on the water, 775 

Gleamed on the columns of cypress and cedar sus- 
taining the arches, 
Down through whose broken vaults it fell as through 

chinks in a ruin. 
Dreamlike, and indistinct, and strange were all things 

around them ; 
And o'er their spirits there came a feeling of wonder 

and sadness, — 
Strange forebodings of ill, unseen and that cannot be 

compassed. 780 

As, at the tramp of a horse's hoof on the turf of the 

prairies, 
Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking 

mimosa. 
So, at the hoof-beats of fate, with sad forebodings of 

evil. 
Shrinks and closes the heart, ere the stroke of doom 

has attained it. 
But Evangeline's heart was sustained by a vision, 

that faintly 785 



Section II] EVANGELINE 67 

Floated before her eyes, and beckoned her on through 

the moonlight. 
It was the thought of her brain that assumed the 

shape of a phantom. 
Through those shadowy aisles had Gabriel wandered 

before her. 
And every stroke of the oar now brought him nearer 

and nearer. 

Then in his place, at the prow of the boat, rose one 
of the oarsmen, 790 

And, as a signal sound, if others like them peradven- 
ture 

Sailed on those gloomy and midnight streams, blew a 
blast on his bugle. 

Wild through the dark colonnades and corridors leafy 
the blast rang. 

Breaking the seal of silence and giving tongues to the 
forest. 

Soundless above them the banners of moss just stirred 
to the music. 795 

Multitudinous echoes awoke and died in the dis- 
tance. 

Over the watery floor, and beneath the reverberant 
branches ; 

But not a voice replied; no answer came from the 
darkness ; 

And when the echoes had ceased, like a sense of pain 
was the silence. 

Then Evangeline slept; but the boatmen rowed 
through the midnight, 800 

Silent at times, then singing familiar Canadian boat- 
songs. 

Such as they sang of old on their own Acadian rivers. 

While through the night were heard the mysterious 
sounds of the desert, 

Far off, — indistinct, — as of wave or wind in the 
forest, 

Mixed with the whoop of the crane and the roar of 
the grim alligator. 805 



68 EVANGELINE [Part II 

Thus ere another noon they emerged from the 
shades ; and before them 

Lay, in the golden sun, the lakes of the Atchafalaya, 

Water-lilies in myriads rocked on the slight undula- 
tions 

Made by the passing oars, and, resplendent in beauty, 
the lotus 

Lifted her golden crown above the heads of the boat- 
men. 810 

Faint was the air with the odorous breath of magno- 
lia blossoms. 

And with the heat of noon ; and numberless sylvan 
islands. 

Fragrant and thickly embowered with blossoming 
hedges of roses. 

Near to whose shores they glided along, invited to 
slumber. 

Soon by the fairest of these their weary oars were 
suspended. 815 

Under the boughs of Wachita willows, that grew by 
the margin. 

Safely their boat was moored ; and scattered about 
on the greensward, 

Tired with their midnight toil, the weary travellers 
slumbered. 

Over them vast and high extended the cope of a cedar. 

Swinging from its great arms, the trumpet-flower and 
the grapevine 820 

Hung their ladder of ropes aloft like the ladder of 
Jacob, 

On whose pendulous stairs the angels ascending, de- 
scending. 

Were the swift humming-birds, that flitted from blos- 
som to blossom. 

Such was the vision Evangeline saw as she slumbered 
beneath it. 

Filled was her heart with love, and the dawn of an 
opening heaven 825 

Lighted her soul in sleep with the glory of regions 
celestial. 



Section II] EVANGELINE 69 

Nearer, ever nearer, among the numberless islands, 

Darted a light, swift boat, that sped away o'er the 
water. 

Urged on its course by the sinewy arms of hunters 
and trappers. 

Northward its prow was turned, to the land of the 
bison and beaver. 830 

At the helm sat a youth, with countenance thought- 
ful and careworn. 

Dark and neglected locks overshadowed his brow, 
and a sadness 

Somewhat beyond his years on his face was legibly 
written. 

Gabriel was it, who, weary with waiting, unhappy 
and restless. 

Sought in the Western wilds oblivion of self and of 
sorrow. 835 

Swiftly they glided along, close under the lee of the 
island, 

But by the opposite bank, and behind a screen of pal- 
mettos ; 

So that they saw not the boat, where it lay concealed 
in the willows ; 

All undisturbed by the dash of their oars, and un- 
seen, were the sleepers ; 

Angel of God was there none to awaken the slumber- 
ing maiden. 840 

Swiftly they glided away, like the shade of a cloud on 
the prairie. 

After the sound of their oars on the tholes had died 
in the distance. 

As from a magic trance the sleepers awoke, and the 
maiden 

Said with a sigh to the friendly priest, " O Father 
Felician ! 

Something says in my heart that near me Gabriel 
wanders. 845 

Is it a f ooUsh dream, an idle and vague superstition ? 

Or has an angel passed, and revealed the truth to my 
spirit?" 



/ 



70 EVANGELINE [Part H 

Then, with a blush, she added, " Alas for my credu- 
lous fancy ! 
Unto ears like thine such words as these have no 

meaning." 
But made answer the reverend man, and he smiled 

as he answered, — 850 

" Daughter, thy words are not idle ; nor are they to 

me without meaning. 
Feeling is deep and still ; and the word that floats on 

the surface 
Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor 

is hidden. 
Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world 

calls illusions. 
Gabriel truly is near thee ; for not far away to the 

southward, 855 

On the banks of the T6che, are the towns of St. Maur 

and St. Martin. 
There the long- wandering bride shall be given again 

to her bridegroom, 
There the long-absent pastor regain his flock and his 

sheepfold. 
Beautiful is the land, with its prairies and forests of 

fruit-trees ; 
Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the bluest of 

heavens 860 

Bending above, and resting its dome on the walls of 

the forest. 
They who dwell there have named it the Eden of 

Louisiana." 

With these words of cheer they arose and continued 

their journey. / 

Softly the evening came/ The sun from the western 

horizon / 

Like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the 

landscape ; 865 

Twinkling vapors arose ; and sky and water and forest 
Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and 

mingled together. / 



Section II] EVANGELINE 71 

Hanging between two skies, a cloud with edges of 

silver, 
Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the mo- 
tionless water. 
Filled was EvangeUne's heart with inexpressible 

sweetness. 870 

Touched by the magic spell, the sacred fountains of 

feeling 
Glowed with the light of love, as the skies and waters 

around her. 
Then from a neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, 

wildest of singers, 
Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the 

water, 
Shook from his httle throat such floods of deUrious 

music, 875 

That the whole air and the woods and the waves 

seemed silent to listen. 
Plaintive at first were the tones and sad ; then soaring 

to madness 
Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied 

Bacchantes. 
Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lam- 
entation ; 
Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad 

in derision, 880 

.^s when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the 

tree-tops 
Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on 

the branches. 
With such a prelude as this, and hearts that throbbed 

with emotion, 
Slowly they entered the Teche, where it flows through 

the green Opelousas, 
And, through the amber air, above the crest of the 

woodland, 885 

Saw the column of smoke that arose from a neighbor- 
ing dwelling ; — 
Sounds of a horn they heard, and the distant lowing 

of cattle. 



72 EVANGELINE [Part II 

III 

Near to the bank of the river, o'ershadowed by oaks 
from whose branches 

Garlands of Spanish moss and of mystic mistletoe 
flaunted, 

Such as the Druids cut down with golden hatchets at 
Yule-tide, 890 

Stood, secluded and still, the house of the herdsman. 
A garden 

Girded it round about with a belt of luxuriant blos- 
soms, Jh 

Filling the air with f ragranc^ The house itself was 
of timbers / 

Hewn from the cypress-tree, and carefully fitted to- 
gether. 

Large and low was the roof ; and on slender columns 
supported, 895 

Rose-wreathed, vine-encircled, a broad and spacious 
veranda. 

Haunt of the humming-bird and the bee, extended 
around it. 

At each end of the house, amid the flowers of the 
garden. 

Stationed the dove-cots were, as love's perpetual sym- 
bol. 

Scenes of endless wooing, and endless contentions of 
rivals. 900 

Silence reigned o'er the place. The line of shadow 
and sunshine 

Ran near the tops of the trees ; but the house itself 
was in shadow. 

And from its chimney-top, ascending and slowly ex- 
panding 

Into the evening air, a thin blue column of smoke 
rose. / 

In the rear of the house, from the garden gate, ran a 
pathway 905 

Through the great groves of oak to the skirts of the 
limitless prairie. 



Section III] EVANGELINE 73 

Into whose sea of flowers the sun was slowly de- 

scendmg. 
Full in his track of light, hke ships with shadowy canvas 
Hanging loose from their spars in a motionless calm 

in the tropics, 
Stood a cluster of trees, with tangled cordage of 

grapevines.^ 910 

Just where the woodlands met the flowery surf of 

the prairie. 
Mounted upon his horse, with Spanish saddle and 

stirrups, 
Sat a herdsman, arrayed in gaiters and doublet of 

deerskin. 
Broad and brown was the face that from under the 

Spanish sombrero 
Gazed on the peaceful scene, with the lordly look of 

its master. 915 

Round about him were numberless herds of kine that 

were grazing 
Quietly in the meadows, and breathing the vapory 

freshness 
That uprose from the river, and spread itself over the 

landscape. 
Slowly lifting the horn that hung at his side, and ex- 
panding 
Fully his broad, deep chest, he blew a blast, that re- 
sounded 920 
Wildly and sweet and far, through the still damp air 

of the evening. 
Suddenly out of the grass the long white horns of the 

cattle 
Rose like flakes of foam on the adverse currents of 

ocean. 
Silent a moment they gazed, then bellovring rushed 

o'er the prairie. 
And the whole mass became a cloud, a shade in the 

distance. 925 

Then, as the herdsman turned to the house, through 

the gate of the garden 



74 EVANGELINE [Part U 

Saw he the forms of the priest and the maiden ad- 
vancing to meet him. 

Suddenly down from his horse he sprang in amaze- 
ment, and forward 

Pushed with extended arms and exclamations of won- 
der; 

When they beheld his face, they recognized Basil the 
blacksmith. 930 

Hearty his welcome was, as he led his guests to the 
garden. 

There in an arbor of roses with endless question and 
answer 

Gave they vent to their hearts, and renewed their 
friendly embraces, 

Laughing and weeping by turns, or sitting silent and 
thoughtful. 

Thoughtful, for Gabriel came not; and now dark 
doubts and misgivings 935 

Stole o'er the maiden's heart; and Basil, somewhat 
embarrassed. 

Broke the silence and said, " If you came by the 
Atchafalaya, 

How have you nowhere encountered my Gabriel's 
boat on the bayous ? " 

Over Evangeline's face at the words of Basil a shade 
passed. 

Tears came into her eyes, and she said, with a trem- 
ulous accent, 940 

"Gone? is Gabriel gone?" and, concealing her face 
on his shoulder, 

All her o'erburdened heart gave way, and she wept 
and lamented. 

Then the good Basil said, — and his voice grew blithe 
as he said it, — 

"Be of good cheer, my child; it is only to-day he 
departed. 

Foolish boy ! he has left me alone with my herds and 
my horses. 945 

Moody and restless grown, and tried and troubled, his 
spirit 




A BLAST, THAT RESOUNDED . . . THROUGH THE STILL DAMP AIR 

OF THE EVENING 



Section III] EVANGELINE ^ 75 

Could no longer endure the calm of this quiet exis- 
tence. 

Thinking ever of thee, uncertain and sorrowful ever. 

Ever silent, or speaking only of thee and his troubles. 

He at length had become so tedious to men and to 
maidens, 950 

Tedious even to me, that at length I bethought me, 
and sent him 

Unto the town of Adayes to trade for mules with the 
Spaniards. 

Thence he will follow the Indian trails to the Ozark 
Mountains, 

Hunting for furs in the forests, on rivers trapping the 
beaver. 

Therefore be of good cheer ; we will follow the fugi- 
tive lover ; 955 

He is not far on his way, and the Fates and the 
streams are against him. 

Up and away to-morrow, and through the red dew of 
the morning. 

We will follow him fast, and bring him back to his 
prison." 

Then glad voices were heard, and up from the 

banks of the river. 
Borne aloft on his comrades' arms, came Michael the 

fiddler. 960 

Long under Basil's roof had he Uved, like a god on 

Olympus, 
Having no other care than dispensing music to mortals. 
Far renowned was he for his silver locks and his 

fiddle. 
" Long live Michael," they cried, " our brave Arcadian 

minstrel ! " 
As they bore him aloft in triumphal procession ; and 

straightway 965 

Father Felician advanced with Evangeline, greeting 

the old man 
Kindly and oft, and recalling the past, while Basil, 

enraptured. 



76 EVANGELINE [Part H 

Hailed with hilarious joy his old companions and gos- 
sips. 

Laughing loud and long, and embracing mothers and 
daughters. 

Much they marvelled to see the wealth of the ci-devant 
blacksmith, 970 

All his domains and his herds, and his patriarchal 
demeanor ; 

Much they marvelled to hear his tales of the soil and 
the climate. 

And of the prairies, whose numberless herds were his 
who would take them ; 

Each one thought in his heart, that he, too, would go 
and do likewise. 

Thus they ascended the steps, and, crossing the breezy 
veranda, 975 

Entered the hall of the house, where already the sup- 
per of Basil 

Waited his late return ; and they rested and feasted 
together. 

Over the joyous feast the sudden darkness descended. 

All was silent without, and, illuming the landscape 
with silver. 

Fair rose the dewy moon and the myriad stars ; but 
within doors, 980 

Brighter than these, shone the faces of friends in the 
glimmering lamplight. 

Then from his station aloft, at the head of the table, 
the herdsman 

Poured forth his heart and his wine together in end- 
less profusion. 

Lighting his pipe, that was filled with sweet Natchi- 
toches tobacco. 

Thus he spake to his guests, who listened, and smiled 
as they listened : — 985 

" Welcome once more, my friends, who long have been 
friendless and homeless. 

Welcome once more to a home, that is better per- 
chance than the old one ! 



Section IH] EVANGELINE 77 

Here no hungry winter congeals our blood like the 

rivers ; 
Here no stony ground provokes the wrath of the 

farmer ; 
Smoothly the ploughshare runs through the soil, as a 

keel through the water, 990 

All the year round the orange-groves are in blossom ; 

and grass grows 
More in a single night than a whole Canadian summer. 
Here, too, numberless herds run wild and unclaimed 

in the prairies ; 
Here, too, lands may be had for the asking, and 

forests of timber 
With a few blows of the axe are hewn and framed 

into houses. 995 

After your houses are built, and your fields are yellow 

with harvests. 
No Kmg George of England shall drive you away from 

your homesteads, 
Burning your dwelhngs and barns, and stealing your 

farms and your cattle." 
Speaking these words, he blew a wrathful cloud from 

his nostrils. 
While his huge, brown hand came thundering down 

on the table, 1000 

So that the guests all started ; and Father Felician, 

astounded. 
Suddenly paused, with a pinch of snuflE half-way to 

his nostrils. 
But the brave Basil resumed, and his words were 

milder and gayer : — 
" Only beware of the fever, my friends, beware of the 

fever ! 
For it is not like that of our cold Acadian climate, 1005 
Cured by wearing a spider hung round one's neck in 

a nutshell!" 
Then there were voices heard at the door, and foot- 
steps approaching 
Sounded upon the stairs and the floor of the breezy 

veranda. 



7» ^ EVANGELINE [Part H 

It was the neighboring Creoles and small Acadian 
planters, 

Who had been summoned all to the house of Basil the 
herdsman. 1010 

Merry the meeting was of ancient comrades and 
neighbors : 

Friend clasped friend in his arms ; and they who 
before were as strangers, 

Meeting in exile, became straightway as friends to each 
other, 

Drawn by the gentle bond of a common country 
together. 

But in the neighboring hall a strain of music, pro- 
ceeding 1015 

From the accordant strings of Michael's melodious 
fiddle, 

Broke up all further speech. Away, Uke children 
delighted. 

All things forgotten beside, they gave themselves to 
the maddening 

Whirl of the dizzy dance, as it swept and swayed 
to the music. 

Dreamlike, with beaming eyes and the rush of flutter- 
ing garments. 1020 

Meanwhile, apart, at the head of the hall, the priest 

and the herdsman 
Sat, conversing together of past and present and 

future ; 
While Evangeline stood like one entranced, for within 

her 
Olden memories rose, and loud in the midst of the 

music 
Heard she the sound of the sea, and an irrepressible 

sadness 1025 

Came o'er her heart, and unseen she stole forth into 

the garden. 
Beautiful was the night. Behind the black wall of 

the forest, 
Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon. On 

the river 



^Section III] EVANGELINE . 79 

Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous 

gleam of the moonlight, 
Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and 

devious spirit. 1030 

Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers 

of the garden 
Poured out their souls in odors, that were their pray- 
ers and confessions 
Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent 

Carthusian. 
Fuller of fragrance than they, and as heavy with 

shadows and night-dews, 
Hung the heart of the maiden. The calm and the 

magical moonlight 1035 

Seemed to inundate her soul with indefinable longings. 
As, through the garden gate, and beneath the shade 

of the oak-trees, 
Passed she along the path to the edge of the measure- 
less prairie. 
Silent it lay, with a silvery haze upon it, and fire-flies 
Gleaming and floating away in mingled and infinite 

numbers. 1040 

Over her head the stars, the thoughts of God in the 

heavens. 
Shone on the eyes of man, who had ceased to marvel 

and worship. 
Save when a blazing comet was seen on the walls of 

that temple. 
As if a hand had appeared and written upon them, 

" Upharsin." 
And the soul of the maiden, between the stars and 

the fire-flies, 1045 

Wandered alone, and she cried, "O Gabriel! O my 

beloved ! 
Art thou so near unto me, and yet I cannot behold 

thee? 
Art thou so near unto me, and yet thy voice does not 

reach me ? 
Ah ! how often thy feet have trod this path to the* 

prairie ! 



80 EVANGELINE [Part II 

Ah ! how often thine eyes have looked on the wood- 
lands around me ! 1050 

Ah ! how often beneath this oak, returning from labor. 

Thou hast lain down to rest, and to dream of me in 
thy slumbers ! 

When shall these eyes behold, these arms be folded 
about thee?" 

Loud and sudden and near the note of a whippoor- 
will sounded 

Like a flute in the woods; and anon, through the 
neighboring thickets, 1055 

Farther and farther away it floated and dropped into 
silence. 

*' Patience ! " whispered the oaks from oracular cav- 
erns of darkness ; 

And, from the moonlit meadow, a sigh responded, 
" To-morrow ! " 

Bright rose the sun next day ; and all the flowers 
of the garden 

Bathed his shining feet with their tears, and anointed 
his tresses 1060 

With the delicious balm that they bore in their vases 
of crystal. 

" Farewell ! " said the priest, as he stood at the 
shadowy threshold ; 

"See that you bring us the Prodigal Son from his 
fasting and famine, 

And, too, the Foolish Virgin, who slept when the 
bridegroom was coming." 

" Farewell ! " answered the maiden, and, smiling, with 
Basil descended 1065 

Down to the river's brink, where the boatmen already 
were waiting. 

Thus beginning their journey with morning, and sun- 
shine, and gladness. 

Swiftly they followed the flight of him who was speed- 
ing before them, 

Blown by the blast of fate like a dead leaf over the 
desert. 



Section IV] EVANGELINE 81 

Not that day, nor the next, nor yet the day that suc- 
ceeded, 1070 

Found they trace of his course, in lake or forest or 
river. 

Nor, after many days, had they found him ; but vague 
and uncertain 

Rumors alone were their guides through a wild and 
desolate country ; 

Till, at the little inn of the Spanish town of Adayes, 

Weary and worn, they alighted, and learned from the 
garrulous landlord 1075 

That on the day before, with horses and guides and 
companions, 

Gabriel left the village, and took the road of the 
prairies. 

IV 

Far in the West there lies a desert land, where the 

mountains 
Lift, through perpetual snows, their lofty and lumi- 
nous summits. 
Down from their jagged, deep ravines, where the 

gorge, like a gateway, 1080 

Opens a passage rude to the wheels of the emigrant's 

wagon, 
Westward the Oregon flows and the Walleway and 

Owyhee. 
Eastward, with devious course, among the Wind- river 

Mountains, 
Through the Sweet-water Valley precipitate leaps the 

Nebraska ; 
And to the south, from the Fontaine-qui-bout and 

the Spanish sierras, 1085 

Fretted with sands and rocks, and swept by the wind 

of the desert. 
Numberless torrents, with ceaseless sound, descend to 

the ocean. 
Like the great chords of a harp, in loud and solemn 

vibrations. 



82 EVANGELINE [Part II 

Spreading between these streams are the wondrous, 
beautiful prairies, 

Billowy bays of grass ever rolling in shadow and sun- 
shine, 1090 

Bright with luxuriant clusters of roses and purple 
amorphas. 

Over them wandered the buffalo herds, and the elk 
and the roebuck ; 

Over them wandered the wolves, and herds of rider- 
less horses ; 

Fires that blast and blight, and winds that are weary 
with travel ; 

Over them wander the scattered tribes of Ishmael's 
children, 1095 

Staining the desert with blood ; and above their terri- 
ble war-trails 

Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vul- 
ture. 

Like the implacable soul of a chieftain slaughtered 
in battle, 

By invisible stairs ascending and scaling the heavens. 

Here and there rise smokes from the camps of these 
savage marauders ; 1100 

Here and there rise groves from the margins of swift- 
running rivers ; 

And the grim, taciturn bear, the anchorite monk of 
the desert. 

Climbs down their dark ravines to dig for roots by 
the brook-side. 

And over all is the sky, the clear and crystalline 
heaven. 

Like the protecting hand of God inverted above 
them. 1105 

Into this wonderful land, at the base of the Ozark 

Mountains, 
Gabriel far had entered, with hunters and trappers 

behind him. 
Day after day, with their Indian guides, the maiden 

and Basil 



Section IV] EVANGELINE 88 

FoUowed his flying steps, and thought each day to 

o'ertake him. 
Sometimes they saw, or thought they saw, the smoke 

of his camp-fire 1110 

Rise in the morning air from the distant plain ; but 

at nightfall. 
When they had reached the place, they found only 

embers and ashes. 
And though their hearts were sad at times and their 

bodies were weary, 
Hope still guided them on, as the magic Fata Mor- 
gana 
Showed them her lakes of light, that retreated and 

vanished before them. 1115 

Once, as they sat by their evening flLre, there si- 
lently entered 
Into the little camp an Indian woman, whose features 
Wore deep traces of sorrow, and patience as great as 

her sorrow. 
She was a Shawnee woman returning home to her 

people. 
From the far-off hunting-grounds of the cruel Ca- 

manches, 1120 

Where her Canadian husband, a coureur-des-bois, had 

been murdered. 
Touched were their hearts at her story, and warmest 

and friendhest welcome 
Gave they, with words of cheer, and she sat and 

feasted among them 
On the buflfalo-meat and the venison cooked on the 

embers. 
But when their meal was done, and Basil and all his 

companions, 1125 

Worn with the long day's march and the chase of the 

deer and the bison. 
Stretched themselves on the ground, and slept where 

the quivering fire-light 
Flashed on their swarthy cheeks, and their forms 

wrapped up in their blankets, 



84 EVANGELINE [Part H 

Then at the door of Evangeline's tent she sat and re- 
peated 
Slowly, with soft, low voice, and the charm of her 

Indian accent, 1130 

All the tale of her love, with its pleasures, and pains, 

and reverses. 
Much Evangeline wept at the tale, and to know that 

another 
Hapless heart like her own had loved and had been 

disappointed. 
Moved to the depths of her soul by pity and woman's 

compassion. 
Yet in her sorrow pleased that one who had suffered 

was near her, 1135 

She in turn related her love and all its disasters. 
Mute with wonder the Shawnee sat, and when she had 

ended 
Still was mute; but at length, as if a mysterious horror 
Passed through her brain, she spake, and repeated 

the tale of the Mowis ; 
Mowis, the bridegroom of snow, who won and wedded 

a maiden, 1140 

But, when the morning came, arose and passed from 

the wigwam. 
Fading and melting away and dissolving into the sun^ 

shine. 
Till she beheld him no more, though she followed far 

into the forest. 
Then, in those sweet, low tones, that seemed like a 

weird incantation. 
Told she the tale of the fair LiUnau, who was wooed 

by a phantom, 1145 

That, through the pines o'er her father's lodge, in the 

hush of the twilight, 
Breathed like the evening wind, and whispered love 

to the maiden, 
Till she followed his green and waving plume through 

the forest, 
And nevermore returned, nor was seen again by her 

people. 



Section TV] EVANGELINE 85 

Silent with wonder and strange surprise, Evangeline 
listened 1150 

To the soft flow of her magical words, till the region 
around her 

Seemed like enchanted ground, and her swarthy guest 
the enchantress. 

Slowly over the tops of the Ozark Mountains the 
moon rose, 

Lighting the little tent, and with a mysterious splen- 
dor 

Touching the sombre leaves, and embracing and fill- 
ing the woodland. 1155 

With a delicious sound the brook rushed by, and the 
branches 

Swayed and sighed overhead in scarcely audible whis- 
pers. 

Filled with the thoughts of love was Evangeline's 
heart, but a secret. 

Subtile sense crept in of pain and indefinite terror. 

As the cold, poisonous snake creeps into the nest of 
the swallow. 1160 

It was no earthly fear. A breath from the region of 
spirits 

Seemed to float in the air of night ; and she felt for a 
moment 

That, like the Indian maid, she, too, was pursuing a 
phantom. 

With this thought she slept, and the fear and the 
phantom had vanished. 

Early upon the morrow the march was resumed, 

and the Shawnee 1165 

Said, as they journeyed along, — "On the western 

slope of these mountains 
Dwells in his little village the Black Robe chief of the 

Mission. 
Much he teaches the people, and tells them of Mary 

and Jesus ; 
Loud laugh their hearts with joy, and weep with pain, 

as they hear him." 



86 EVANGELINE [Part H 

Then, with a sudden and secret emotion, Evangeline 
answered, 1170 

"Let us go to the Mission, for there good tidings 
await us ! " 

Thither they turned their steeds ; and behind a spur 
of the mountains, 

Just as the sun went down, they heard a murmur of 
voices, 

And in a meadow green and broad, by the bank of a river, 

Saw the tents of the Christians, the tents of the Jesuit 
Mission. 1175 

Under a towering oak, that stood in the midst of the 
village. 

Knelt the Black Robe chief with his children. A cru- 
cifix fastened 

High on the trunk of the tree, and overshadowed by 
grapevines. 

Looked with its agonized face on the multitude kneel- 
ing beneath it. 

This was their rural chapel. Aloft, through the intri- 
cate arches 1180 

Of its aerial roof, arose the chant of their vespers. 

Mingling its notes with the soft susurrus and sighs of 
the branches. 

Silent, with heads uncovered, the travellers, nearer 
approaching. 

Knelt on the swarded floor, and joined in the evening 
devotions. 

But when the service was done, and the benediction 
had fallen 1185 

Forth from the hands of the priest, like seed from 
the hands of the sower. 

Slowly the reverend man advanced to the strangers 
and bade them 

Welcome ; and when they replied, he smiled with be- 
nignant expression. 

Hearing the homelike sounds of his mother-tongue in 
the forest. 

And, with words of kindness, conducted them into 
his wigwam. 1190 



Section IV] EVANGELmE 87 

There upon mats and skins they reposed, and on 
cakes of the maize-ear 

Feasted, and slaked their thirst from the water- 
gourd of the teacher. 

Soon was their story told ; and the priest with solem- 
nity answered : — 

"Not six suns have risen and set since Gabriel, seated 

On this mat by my side, where now the maiden re- 
poses, 1195 

Told me this same sad tale ; then arose and continued 
his journey!" 

Soft was the voice of the priest, and he spake with an 
accent of kindness ; 

But on Evangeline's heart fell his words as in winter 
the snow-flakes 

Fall into some lone nest from which the birds have 
departed. 

" Far to the north he has gone," continued the priest ; 
" but in autumn, 1200 

When the chase is done, will return again to the 
Mission." 

Then Evangeline said, and her voice was meek and 
submissive, 

"Let me remain with thee, for my soul is sad and af- 
flicted." 

So seemed it wise and well unto all ; and betimes on 
the morrow. 

Mounting his Mexican steed, with his Indian guides 
and companions, 1205 

Homeward Basil returned, and Evangeline stayed at 
the Mission. 

Slowly, slowly, slowly the days succeeded each 

other, — 
Days and weeks and months ; and the fields of maize 

that were springing 
Green from the ground when a stranger she came, 

now waving about her. 
Lifted their slender shafts, with leaves interlacing, 

and forming 1210 



88 EVANGELINE [Part II 

Cloisters for mendicant crows and granaries pillaged 

by squirrels. 
Then in the golden weather the maize was husked, 

and the maidens 
Blushed at each blood-red ear, for that betokened a 

lover, 
But at the crooked laughed, and called it a thief in 

the corn-field. 
Even the blood-red ear to Evangeline brought not 

her lover. 1215 

" Patience ! " the priest would say ; " have faith, and 

thy prayer will be answered ! 
Look at this vigorous plant that hfts its head from 

the meadow. 
See how its leaves are turned to the north, as true 

as the magnet ; 
This is the compass-flower, that the finger of God has 

planted 
Here in the houseless wild, to direct the traveller's 

journey 1220 

Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste of the desert. 
Such in the soul of man is faith. The blossoms of 

passion, 
Gay and luxuriant flowers, are brighter and fuller of 

fragrance. 
But they beguile us, and lead us astray, and their 

odor is deadly. 
Only this humble plant can guide us here, and here- 
after 1225 
Crown us with asphodel flowers, that are wet with 

the dews of nepenthe." 

So came the autumn, and passed, and the winter, — 

yet Gabriel came not ; 
Blossomed the opening spring, and the notes of the 

robin and bluebird 
Sounded sweet upon wold and in wood, yet Gabriel 

came not. 
But on the breath of the summer winds a rumor was 

wafted 1230 



Section IV] EVANGELINE 89 

Sweeter than song of bird, or hue or odor of blos- 
som. 

Far to the north and east, it said, in the Michigan 
forests, 

Gabriel had his lodge by the banks of the Saginaw 
River. 

And, with returning guides, that sought the lakes of 
St. Lawrence, 

Saying a sad farewell, Evangeline went from the Mis- 
sion. 1235 

When over weary ways, by long and perilous 
marches. 

She had attained at length the depths of the Michi- 
gan forests. 

Found she the hunter's lodge deserted and fallen to 
ruin! 

Thus did the long sad years glide on, and in sea- 
sons and places 
Divers and distant far was seen the wandering 

maiden ; — 1240 

Now in the Tents of Grace of the meek Moravian 

Missions, 
Now in the noisy camps and the battle-fields of the 

army. 
Now in secluded hamlets, and towns and populous 

cities. 
Like a phantom she came, and passed away unre- 

membered. 
Fair was she and young, when in hope began the 

long journey ; 1245 

Faded was she and old, when in disappointment it 

ended. 
Each succeeding year stole something away from her 

beauty. 
Leaving behind it, broader and deeper, the gloom and 

the shadow. 
Then there appeared and spread faint streaks of gray 

o'er her forehead, 



00 EVANGELINE [Part II 

Dawn of another life, that broke o'er her earthly hori- 
zon, 1250 

As in the eastern sky the first faint streaks of the 
morning. 



In that delightful land which is washed by the Dela- 
ware's waters. 

Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Penn the 
apostle, 

Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city 
he founded. 

There all the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem 
of beauty, 1255 

And the streets still reecho the names of the trees of 
the forest. 

As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose 
haunts they molested. 

There from the troubled sea had Evangeline landed, 
an exile, 

Finding among the children of Penn a home and a 
country. 

There old Rene Leblanc had died ; and when he de- 
parted, 1260 

Saw at his side only one of all his hundred descend- 
ants. 

Something at least there was in the friendly streets of 
the city. 

Something that spake to her heart, and made her no 
longer a stranger ; 

And her ear was pleased with the Thee aiid Thou of 
the Quakers, 

For it recalled the past, the old Acadian country, 1265 

Where all men were equal, and all were brothers and 
sisters. 

So, when the fruitless search, the disappointed en- 
deavor. 

Ended, to recommence no more upon earth, uncom- 
plaining, 



Section V] EVANGELINE 91 

Thither, as leaves to the light, were turned her 

thoughts and her footsteps. 
As from a mountain's top the rainy mists of the morn- 

mg 1270 

Roll away, and afar we behold the landscape below us, 
Sun-illumined, with shining rivers and cities and ham- 
lets, 
So fell the mists from her mind, and she saw the 

world far below her. 
Dark no longer, but all illumined with love ; and the 

pathway 
Which she had climbed so far, lying smooth and fair 

in the distance. 1275 

Gabriel was not forgotten. Within her heart was his 

image. 
Clothed in the beauty of love and youth, as last she 

beheld him. 
Only more beautiful made by his deathUke silence and 

absence. 
Into her thoughts of him time entered not, for it was 

not. 
Over him years had no power ; he was not changed, 

but transfigured ; 1280 

He had become to her heart as one who is dead, and 

not absent ; 
Patience and abnegation of self, and devotion to 

others. 
This was the lesson a life of trial and sorrow had 

taught her. 
So was her love diffused, but, like to some odorous 

spices. 
Suffered no waste nor loss^ though filling the air with 

aroma. 1285 

Other hope had she none, nor wish in life, but to follow. 
Meekly with reverent steps, the sacred feet of her 

Saviour. 
Thus many years she lived as a Sister of Mercy ; fre- 
quenting 
Lonely and wretched roofs in the crowded lanes of 

the city, 



92 EVANGELINE [Part U 

Where distress and want concealed themselves from 
the sunlight, 1290 

Where disease and sorrow in garrets languished neg- 
lected. 

Night after night when the world was asleep, as the 
watchman repeated 

Loud, through the gusty streets, that all was well in 
the city. 

High at some lonely window he saw the light of her 
taper. 

Day after day, in the gray of the dawn, as slow 
through the suburbs 1295 

Plodded the German farmer, with flowers and fruits 
for the market, 

Met he that meek, pale face, returning home from its 
watchings. 

Then it came to pass that a pestilence fell on the 
city. 

Presaged by wondrous signs, and mostly by flocks of 
wild pigeons. 

Darkening the sun in their flight, with naught in their 
craws but an acorn. 1300 

And, as the tides of the sea arise in the month of Sep- 
tember, 

Flooding some silver stream, till it spreads to a lake 
in the meadow. 

So death flooded life, and, o'erflowing its natural mar- 
gin, 

Spread to a brackish lake the silver stream of existence. 

Wealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty to charm, 
the oppressor ; , 1305 

But all perished alike beneath the scourge of his 
anger ; — 

Only, alas ! the poor, who had neither friends nor at- 
tendants. 

Crept away to die in the almshouse, home of the 
homeless. 

Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of meadows 
and woodlands ; — 



Section V] EVANGELINE 93 

Now the city surrounds it ; but still, with its gateway 
and wicket 1310 

Meek, in the midst of splendor, its humble walls seem 
to echo 

Softly the words of the Lord : — " The poor ye always 
have with you." 

Thither, by night and by day, came the Sister of 
Mercy. The dying 

Looked up into her face, and thought, indeed, to be- 
hold there 

Gleams of celestial light encircle her forehead with 
splendor, 1315 

Such as the artist paints o'er the brows of saints and 
apostles. 

Or such as hangs by night o'er a city seen at a dis- 
tance. 

Unto their eyes it seemed the lamps of the city celestial. 

Into whose shining gates erelong their spirits would 
enter. 

Thus, on a Sabbath morn, through the streets, de- 
serted and silent, 1320 

Wending her quiet way, she entered the door of the 
almshouse. 

Sweet on the summer air was the odor of flowers in 
the garden. 

And she paused on her way to gather the fairest among 
them. 

That the dying once more might rejoice in their fra- 
grance and beauty. 

Then, as she mounted the stairs to the corridors, 
cooled by the east- wind, 1325 

Distaut and soft on her ear fell the chimes from the 
belfry of Christ Church, 

While, intermingled with these, across the meadows 
were wafted 

Sounds of psalms, that were sung by the Swedes in 
their church at Wicaco. 

Soft as descending wings fell the calm of the hour on 
her spirit ; 



94 / EVANGELINE [Part U 

Something within her said, " At length thy trials are 
ended ; " 1330 

And, with light in her looks, she entered the chambers 
of sickness. 

Noiselessly moved about the assiduous, careful attend- 
ants, 

Moistening the feverish lip, and the aching brow, and 
in silence 

Closing the sightless eyes of the dead, and concealing 
their faces. 

Where on their pallets they lay, like drifts of snow 
by the roadside. 1335 

Many a lanquid head, upraised as Evangeline en- 
tered, 

Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she passed, 
for her presence 

Fell on their hearts like a ray of the sun on the walls 
of a prison. 

And, as she looked around, she saw how Death, the 
consoler. 

Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it 
forever. 1340 

Many familiar forms had disappeared in the night 
time; 

Vacant their places were, or filled already by strangers. 

Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of 

wonder, 
Still she stood, with her colorless lips apart, while a 

shudder 
Ran through her frame, and, forgotten, the flowerets 

dropped from her fingers, 1345 

And from her eyes and cheeks the light and bloom of 

the morning. 
Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such terri- 
ble anguish. 
That the dying heard it, and started up from their 

pillows. 
On the pallet before her was stretched the form of an 

old man. 



Section V] EVANGELINE 95 

Long, and thin, and gray were the locks that shaded 
his temples ; 1350 

But, as he lay in the morning light, his face for ^ 
moment 

Seemed to assume once more the forms of its earlier 
manhood ; I 

So are wont to be changed the faces of those who are 
dying. 

Hot and red on his lips still burned the flush of the 
fever, 

As if life, like the Hebrew, with blood had besprinkled 
its portals, 1355 

That the Angel of Death might see the sign, and pass 
over. 

Motionless, senseless, dying, he lay, and his spirit ex- 
hausted 

Seemed to be sinking down through infinite depths 
in the darkness. 

Darkness of slumber and death, forever sinking and 
sinking. 

Then through those realms of shade, in multiplied 
reverberations, 1360 

Heard he that cry of pain, and through the hush that 
succeeded 

Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and saint- 
like, 

"Gabriel! O my beloved!" and died away into si- 
lence. 

Then he beheld, in a dream, once more the home of 
his childhood ; 

Green Acadian meadows, with sylvan rivers among 
them, 1365 

Village, and mountain, and woodlands ; and, walking 
under their shadow. 

As in the days of her youth, Evangeline rose in his 
vision. 

Tears came into his eyes ; and as slowly he lifted his 
eyelids. 

Vanished the vision away, but Evangeline knelt by 
his bedside. 



96 EVANGELINE [Part II 

Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for the accents 

unuttered 1370 

Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his 

tongue would have spoken. 
Vainly he strove to rise; and Evangeline, kneeling 

beside him. 
Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom. 
Sweet was the light of his eyes ; but it suddenly sank 

into darkness. 
As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a 

casement. 1375 

All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the 

sorrow. 
All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing. 
All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of 

patience ! 
And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her 

bosom. 
Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, " Father, 

I thank thee ! " 1380] 

Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from 
its shadow, 

Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are 
sleeping. 

Under the humble walls of the little Catholic church- 
yard. 

In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and un- 
noticed. 

Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside 
them, 1385 

Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at 
rest and forever. 

Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer 
are busy. 

Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased 
from their labors, 

Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have com- 
i pleted their journey ! 



Section V] EVANGELINE 97 

Still stands the forest primeval; but under the 
shade of its branches 1390 

Dwells another race, with other customs and language. 

Only along the shore of the mournful and misty 
Atlantic 

Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from 
exile 

Wandered back to their native land to die in its 
bosom. 

In the fisherman's cot the wheel and the loom are stiU 
busy ; 1395 

Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles 
of homespun, 

And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story. 

While from its rocky caverns the deep- voiced, neigh- 
boring ocean 

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail 
of the forest. 



STUDY HELPS 

BY MARGARET ASHMUN 

PART THE FIRST 

Prelude, and Section I. The events related in the first 
part of the poem took place in 1755. Read the Historical 
Introduction as far as the sentence beginning, The officers 
of the colony. Consult the map of Nova Scotia on page 100 
while you are reading. Now, read carefully ^ but without 
interruption the Prelude and Section I. Consult the Notes 
for information if necessary, but read chiefly for the story. 
When you have read all of the section, go back and study 
it with the help of the Notes and the following questions and 
suggestions: — 

What is the use of the Prelude? Notice, in Section I, 
how you are given, first, the surroundings or the geog- 
raphy of the scene; then the village with its ordinary in- 
habitants; then the chief characters of the story. Does 
this seem like a good method? Why, or why not? Why 
does the author give so short a description of Benedict, and 
so long a description of Evangeline? Can you describe 
either of them more fully? By means of what details does 
the author give you a clear idea of Benedict's home? Why 
mention the chickens and the doves? How does the au- 
thor lead to the subject of Gabriel? How long have Evange- 
line and Gabriel known each other? Why does the author 
give such a long account of their childhood? 

Section II. Read the entire section without stopping. 
Then read it again, more carefully. Why does the author 
break the poem up into sections? Why does he give such 
a long description here? How does he bring out the idea of 

1 The reading ought to be begun in class. 



STUDY HELPS 99 

peace in Acadia? What sort of life do the Acadians lead? 
What is the daily hfe of Evangeline? By what means does 
the author bring out the fact that these people are French? 
What sort of man is Basil the blacksmith? Do you get a 
clear idea of the appearance and character of Gabriel? Read 
carefully the conversation between Benedict and Basil. 
What do you learn from it as to the recent events in Aca- 
dia? How does the conversation show the characters of the 
two men? What is meant by " the house and the barn " ? 
What do you discover of the marriage customs among the 
Acadians? 

Section III. Read the entire section, consulting the 
Notes as necessary, but not stopping long on any one 
point. Now, go back to the beginning of the section. What 
is the notary's errand at Benedict's house? What details 
make his portrait clear? Find what is said of him in the 
Notes, Do you think that the stories he told the village 
children were suitable for little people? Does the story 
about the orphan girl and the statue show the triumph of 
justice or of injustice? How does this story apply to the 
ships in the harbor? What thoughts were congealed into the 
lines on the face of the blacksmith? Note how in the rest 
of the section the author emphasizes the peace and con- 
fidence of the group, and their prospects of future hap- 
piness. What is gained by the descriptions of the moon and 
the stars? 

Section IV. Read the entire section. Then read the 
remainder of the Historical Introduction, What was going 
on in Grand-Pr6? How does the author keep up the idea 
of contentment? The betrothal among these French peo- 
ple was almost as binding as the marriage. What is meant 
by every house was an inn f Note the contrast between the 
passage beginning, Under the open shy, and that begin- 
ning, So passed the morning away. What is gained by this 
contrast? Of what nationality were the guard from the 
ships? Who was their commander? Remember, in reading 
this passage, that the people are French; that their lan- 
guage is French; and that the church is Roman Catholic. 



102 STUDY HELPS 

Who is his Majesty f Were the orders really from the king? 
(See page 25.) What did the hearts of the peasants reply- 
when the commander asked them how they had repaid the 
king^s kindness f Were the other lands to be under the rule 
of the English? Why does the commander mention the 
king so often? Was it true that the Acadians had never 
sworn allegiance to England? What sort of man was 
Father Felician? Was he right in counseling peace? Did 
the Acadians really forgive their enemies? Notice how, in 
this section, the author keeps Evangeline always before 
you. How does he bring out her character at the end of the 
section? 

Section V. Read the entire section. Notice how the 
author passes over the four days that the men spent in the 
church. What boats were the men taken to? Why did 
they sing as they marched to the shore? How does Evange- 
line conduct herself? Was it true that nothing in truth 
could harm her and Gabriel? How does Benedict feel 
about the action of the English? What was likely to be 
the effect of the difference in language of the captives and 
the soldiers? How does the author make you feel the con- 
fusion and the sadness of the night? What is suggested by 
Benedict's vacant stare f Is this effect on him in keeping 
with his character? Why did the Enghsh burn the houses 
of the Acadians? Was such action necessary? Was it ex- 
cusable? How would it make the people feel? What was 
the cause of Benedict's death? What is suggested by the 
priest's words, a happier season f Did this happier season 
ever come? 

PART THE SECOND 

Section I. Read the entire section for the story. Then 
read it again, more carefully. How does the author show 
the lapse of time? Was it the intention of the English to 
scatter the Acadians? How do you think the exiles lived? 
Why did the Enghsh not make up the losses of the Aca- 
dians and give them a place to Uve? Note the Hue in this 
section in which Evangeline is introduced. Could the 



STUDY HELPS 103 

separation of Evangeline and Gabriel take place and con- 
tinue nowadays? What means have we of uniting people 
who have been separated by accident? Do you think that 
Gabriel made any attempt to search out Evangeline? Do 
you think it good advice that was given in the passage 
beginning, Dear child? How has Evangeline's character 
been developing during the years of exile? What does the 
priest mean when he says, Affection never was wasted? Is 
it true? What is meant by the words, bleeding and bare- 
foot? Explain the passage beginning. Let me essay and 
ending with reaches an outlet. 

Section II. Read the entire section. Consult the map of 
Louisiana on page 101 while you are reading. Many 
Acadians settled in Louisiana, drawn thither by their feel- 
ing of kinship with the French who had long lived there. 
The descendants of the Acadians still live in Louisiana, 
where the common people call them ^' Cajuns.'' Note the 
contrast between methods of travel in Evangehne's time 
and in ours. Did the Acadians make a bad exchange when 
they came from Nova Scotia to Louisiana? How does the 
author make you feel the warmth and beauty of this tropical 
region? The mystery of the swamps and bayous? Note how 
the author keeps Evangeline always before you. What are 
her thoughts regarding Gabriel? Why does the oarsman 
blow his horn? What is meant by the desert (line 803) ? Read 
carefully the description of the lakes of Atchafalaya. How 
does the author make you feel their beauty? In what di- 
rection is the light, swift boat going? Do you get a clear 
idea of GabrieFs appearance and his feelings? Compare 
your knowledge of him with your knowledge of Evangeline : 
Why this difference? Why was Gabriel seeking oblivion of 
self and of sorrow ? Do you think it possible for Evangeline 
to feel the nearness of Gabriel? What does the priest mean 
when he says. Trust to thy heart? Is it a good method to 
bring in so much description here? 

Section III. Read the entire section. Then read it again, 
more carefully. Who is the herdsman mentioned in line 
891? Can you discover anything about him from the 



104 STUDY HELPS 

description of his house? Note the description of the man 
in hnes 913-21. Why do the cattle rush over the prairies? 
How has Basil prospered in exile? How do you suppose he 
gained his success? Why does Evangeline not ask about 
Gabriel? Why has GabrieFs spirit been tried and troubled 
(line 946)? What is GabrieFs errand away from home? 
What is meant by the Fates and the streams are against him f 
What is meant by his prison? Where did we last see 
Michael the Fiddler? What is his present way of living? 
Was it true that numberless herds were his who would take 
them? What Hght does this throw on BasiFs prosperity? 
How is the character of Basil brought out? Notice what 
he says about the contrast between Nova Scotia and 
Louisiana. Does he regret leaving Grand-Pre? Note his 
words, "iVo King George.^* Who ruled over Louisiana? 
You will see later why the fever is mentioned here. Note 
the contrast between Evangehne's feelings and the feehngs 
of others. Why does she go into the garden? What are her 
thoughts and feehngs (Hnes 1045-58)? Why does the 
priest remain at the settlement? What is meant by the 
blast of fate? What is meant by the day that succeeded? 
Is there any good reason why they do not overtake 
Gabriel? 

Section IV. Read the entire section. How does the au- 
thor make you feel the bigness of the West? What does he 
show of the vastness and the dangers of the prairie? Why 
is Gabriel in the Ozark Mountains? Who is with Evange- 
line? What is gained by the story of the Indian woman? 
Why does the Indian woman speak of the bridegroom of 
snow and the phantom lover? What does she mean to 
suggest? How does she make Evangehne feel (lines 1159- 
63)? Why does Evangehne go to the Mission? What is 
meant by his children ? What was his native tongue ? Why 
does Evangeline stay at the Mission? How does the au- 
thor indicate the passing of time, in this section? What 
maidens are meant in line 1212? What is this humble plant 
(Hne 1225)? How long would it take Evangehne to get 
to the Saginaw River? How did she go? Note that hnes 



STUDY HELPS 105 

1239-51 cover a long period of time. What army is men- 
tioned in line 1242? 

Section V. Read the entire section. This scene is laid 
in Philadelphia. What was Evangeline's reason for mak- 
ing her home in that city (lines 1258, 1259)? Why was her 
search ended (lines 1267, 1268)? What is meant by the 
lines that say she saw the world far below her f What is her 
character as we see it in this last section? How does she 
feel about Gabriel? What is her work? Note the year of the 
pestilence. (See Notes.) How long has it been since Evange- 
line saw Gabriel? Who is the oppressor (line 1305)? Why 
were the streets deserted and silent? What was the some- 
thing that spoke to her? An old man: How old would Ga- 
briel be? How is it that Evangeline can recognize him 
(lines 1351-53)? Re-read slowly and quietly the passage 
beginning. Suddenly (line 1343), through to line 1380. What 
becomes of Evangehne at the last? Go back and read 
the Prelude; then read the Conclusion. Do you see a good 
reason for each? Do you think the story well ended? 

General suggestions. Sit down quietly and run through 
the poem from beginning to end, reading a good deal of it, 
and bearing in mind the story as a whole. Do you see why 
it has always been so well liked and so much admired? Try 
to find the right words with which to describe the poem to 
some one who has not read it. Find the right words to 
express your idea of Evangeline's character; Father Feli- 
cian's; Basil's. Pick out seven or eight of the passages you 
like best, and prepare yourself to read any one of them 
before the class. Pick out some of the best lines and learn 
them. Pick out here and there expressions which seem 
especially beautiful and full of meaning; learn them. Ob- 
serve that one of the most striking features of the poem is 
its wealth of imagery; commit to memory the lines con- 
taining similes, metaphors, and other figures of speech 
which impress you as most happily conceived. Other out- 
standing features are: (1) the accounts of the manners and 
customs of the Acadian peasants; (2) the descriptions of 
persons and places, and (3) the many contrasting epi- 



106 STUDY HELPS 

sodes and scenes. In the following brief outline of the 
poem, insert references to your favorite passages relating 
to these subjects, and to any others which have impressed 
you as distinguishing the poem. 

Remembering that the action of the narrative takes 
place between September, 1755 (Part the Second opening 
in May, 1765), and 1793, the year of the yellow fever epi- 
demic in Philadelphia, recall the important events in 
United States history occurring within this period. In this 
connection, read sections 125-211 in Thwaite's and Ken- 
dairs History of the United States; note also the " Recom- 
mended Readings ^' in history, biography, fiction, and 
poetry listed on page 214 of that book. 



A BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE POEM 



I. 



11. 



Ill, 



IV. 



V. 



I. 



II. 



PART THE FIRST 

(a) The Little Village of Grand-Pr6 (lines 20-57). 

(b) The farmer and his daughter (lines 58-81). 

(c) Evangeline's home (lines 82-102). 

(d) Evangeline's suitors (lines 103-47). 

(a) An autumn evening (lines 148-217). 
(6) Benedict and Basil (lines 218-67). 

(a) The notary (lines 268-329). 

(6) The marriage contract (lines 330-52). ] 

(c) The curfew (lines 353-81). 

(a) The betrothal feast (Unes 382-419). 

(b) The gathering at the church (lines 420-59). ' 

(c) Father Felician (lines 460-81). 

(d) The evening service (Unes 482-86). 

(e) The ill tidings spread (lines 487-523). 

(a) The mournful procession (lines 524-67). 

(6) The tumult and stir of embarking (lines 568-84). 

(c) Night on the shore (lines 585-612). 

(d) The burning of the village (lines 613-35). 

(e) Benedict's death (lines 636-65). 

PART THE SECOND 

(a) Evangeline begins her search for Gabriel (lines 
666-740). 

(a) Her journey down the Ohio River (lines 741-826). 
(6) GabrieFs boat passes unseen (lines 827-62). 
(c) Evangeline is inspired with new hope (lines 
863-87). 



108 A BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE POEM 

III. ■ 

(a) Evangeline and Father Felician find Basil (lines 

888-934). 
(6) GabrieFs errand (lines 935-58). 

(c) A reunion of old friends (lines 959-1058). 

(d) Basil and Evangeline follow Gabriel (lines 1059- 
77). 

IV. 

(a) Gabriel's wanderings (lines 1078-1115). 
lb) The Indian woman's tale (1116-64). 

(c) The Jesuit Mission (lines 1165-1235). 

(d) Evangeline resumes her search alone (lines 
1236-51). 

V. 

(a) The Sister of Mercy (lines 1252-97). 
(6) The pestilence (lines 1298-1319). 
(c) The finding of Gabriel (1320-80), 



COMPOSITION ASSIGNMENTS 

1. Imagine that you are making a visit to Longfellow's 
home in Cambridge. Starting from Harvard Square, you 
walk along Brattle Street for about half a mile, the same 
way that Longfellow must have taken many a day on his 
way home from the college. The street is wide, and lined 
with magnificent trees — elms, horse-chestnuts, and pines. 
You pass the place where the village blacksmith used to 
have his shop, and beyond it Tory Row, where the ancient 
houses of the English Royalists are still standing in the 
midst of velvety lawns and rhododendron hedges. Then 
you come to the Longfellow house. The poet's daughter, 
Alice Longfellow, still lives here, but the poet's study is 
open to visitors at certain times of the day, and it is kept 
just as it was when he used it. Directly opposite the house 
is the Longfellow Memorial Park, and midway between 
the house and Charles River Drive is the Longfellow 
Memorial. There is a bust of the poet with a bas-rehef 
of the chief characters of his poems — Priscilla, Miles 
Standish, Evangeline, Hiawatha, and others. With these 
facts to guide you, write an account of your visit — of the 
many changes that must have come to Cambridge and 
Harvard since Longfellow's time, — of your feehngs as you 
pass over the same ground that Longfellow traversed, and 
see many of the things which he saw — and of the recollec- 
tions of his poems stirred by your visit to his study. 

2. Write an account of an imaginary Sunday afternoon 
in Longfellow's home when the poet was alive. Bring two 
or three of his friends to his study, and write their con- 
versation. Perhaps one of them might ask the poet how he 
came to write Evangeline, Imagine Longfellow telling the 
story. 

3. Imagine that you are the little girl who wanted to see 
Longfellow, and write the conversation first with Luigi 



110 COMPOSITION ASSIGNMENTS 

Monti and then with Longfellow himself. Think how as- 
tonished and bashful and delighted she must have been 
when the poet himself came out to see her, and try to show 
all those feelings in what she says. 

4. Imagine yourself a member of one of Longfellow's 
classes in English. Imagine how these classes seemed to the 
students who sat at the mahogany table in the Corpora- 
tion Room and listened to the poet-professor who always 
treated his students like gentlemen. Describe the recitation 
and your own feelings toward Longfellow. 

5. Write a character sketch of Father Felician as he was 
in the peaceful days before the exile. Picture him going 
about his daily duties among his people, and show how 
they regard him. 

6. Write a description of Evangeline's kitchen in Grand- 
Pr^, and show her at work in it churning, or getting dinner, 
or baking cookies. Try to show by what she does that 
she is a good housekeeper. Try to show her sweet, kindly 
nature. If one of the neighborhood children came in, do 
you think she would make him welcome? 

7. Imagine a conversation between Colonel Winslow and 
his most trusted lieutenant aboard one of the English ships 
the day before the announcement is made that the Acadians 
must come to the church to hear the proclamation. Let 
the two men discuss the expulsion of the Acadians. Make 
their characters different — one stern, feeling that it is 
his duty to his country to scatter the Acadian colony, the 
other tender-hearted and quick to feel the sorrow of the 
exiles. Try to make the conversation as true to historic 
facts as possible. 

8. Write the conversation between Basil and Gabriel 
in Louisiana when the young man grows so restless and 
unhappy that Basil sends him to trade for mules at 
Adayes. 

9. Write an imaginary adventure of Gabriel's with the 
Indians in the Western forests and prairies. Make it excit- 
ing and true to life. You might let Gabriel tell the story 
himself to the Black Robe chief at the Mission; but if you 



COMPOSITION ASSIGNMENTS 111 

do, remember that the man who is really brave is usually 
modest about it. 

10. Imagine that you are Gabriel, and that as you are 
traveling alone through the wilderness, you meet another 
trapper cooking his supper over a camp-fire at the fork 
of some river. He wants to go to the country you have 
just left, and asks you what route he should take. You tell 
him how to go, and draw him a rough sketch-map of your 
travels. Use your geography in planning this composition, 
and put in all the places where Gabriel went, as far as the 
poem tells them. Add suggestions of your own. Write the 
conversation, and draw the map as you think Gabriel 
might have drawn it. 

11. Describe Evangeline at her work among the poor 
in Philadelphia before she found Gabriel. She was doing 
much the same kind of work that the visiting nurses are 
doing in the cities to-day. Follow her all of one morning, 
and tell what you see. 



NOTES 

LINE 

1 the forest primeval : A forest in its natural state, untouched 

by the axe. 
3 Druids: The priests of the early inhabitants of England. 

These tribes considered the oak tree particularly sacred. 
3 eld: Olden times. 

20 Acadian: The name Acadie or Acadia was of Indian ori- 
gin. Acadia was colonized by France in 1604, and ceded 
to Great Britain in 1713. The French settlers were carried 
away in 1755. 

21 Grand-Pre : The name is French. It means Great Meadow, 
24 dikes: Embankments to keep out the ocean. 

29 Blomidon: A rough, towering headland of rock at the 

entrance of the Basin of Minas. 
34 Normandy: A province in northeastern France. 

34 the Henries: French kings — Henry III and Henry IV 
— who reigned from 1574 to 1610. 

35 dormer-windows: Windows with gables, rising from a 
sloping roof. 

39 kirtles: Skirts and jackets. 

49 Angelus : The ringing of a bell at morning, noon, and night, 
in remembrance of the visit of the angel to the Virgin 
Mary. 

62 stalworth: Stalwart, or strong. The word meant, origi- 
nally, good at stealing. 

72 hyssop: A plant mentioned in the Old Testament as being 
used for the sprinkling of the blood of a sacrifice (Exod. 
XII, 22), or holy water. 

74 missal: The Roman Catholic mass-book. 

87 penthouse: A small projecting roof, usually over a door. 

93 wains: Heavy wagons. 

93 antique: The accent is here on the first syllable. 

94 seraglio: The apartment where the wives of a sultan are 
kept. 

96 Peter: See Mark xiv, 29, 30, and 66-72, for the story of 
Peter's denial of his friendship with Jesus. 



NOTES 113 

LINE 

102 mutation: Change. Is the word a good one here? 

Ill Patron Saint: A saint regarded as the special protector of 

some person or place. 
122 plain-song: Simple, old-fashioned monotonous music, 

formerly used in churches. 
139 that stone : In an old French fable we are told that if one 

of a swallow's brood is blind, the mother seeks on the sea- 
shore a pebble with which she restores the sight of the 

young bird. The stone was supposed to bring great luck to 

the person who found it. 
144 Saint Eulalie : An old French proverb says that if the sun 

shines on Saint Eulalie's Day (February 12), there will be 

plenty of apples. 
149 Scorpion: The eighth sign of the zodiac, which the sun 

enters late in October. 
153 Jacob: For the story of Jacob and the angel see Gen. 

xxxn, 24-29. 
159 Summer of All-Saints: Our Indian Summer. All-Saints' 

Day is November 1. 
170 plane-tree: There is a story that Xerxes, the Persian king, 

once found a plane-tree so beautiful that he dressed it in 

fine robes and valuable jewels. 
172 its burden and heat: A quotation from the Bible, -— 

Matt. XX, 12. 
188 fetlocks: Tufts of hair above a horse's hoofs. 
209 Norman orchards: Orchards of Normandy, in France. 
209 Burgundian: Burgundy was a province in eastern France, 

noted for its grapes and wine. 

237 English ships: The ships that had brought the troops 
under the command of Colonel Winslow. 

238 Gaspereau: A river flowing into the Basin of Minas. See 
map on page 100. 

240 his Majesty's mandate: The command of King George II 
of England. He ruled from 1727 to 1760. Had he really 
issued an order for the removal of the Acadians? 

249 Louisburg: A fort on Cape Breton Island (see map) built 
by the French, but taken by the English in 1745. 

249 Beau Sejour: A French fort north of the Basin of Minas, 
captured by the English in 1755. 

249 Port Royal: See map; captured by the English in 1710. 

261 glebe: Turf. 



114 NOTES 

LINE 

263 Rene Leblanc: A real person. In a petition to the king, 

made many years later, it is stated of Leblanc that he was 

put ashore in New York with his wife and only two of hia 

twenty children. 

267 notary: An oflScer who makes out contracts and takes the 

oaths of parties entering into an agreement. 
275 the war: Perhaps King George's War between the French 
and English, 1744-48; or possibly the much earlier war of 
Queen Anne, 1702-13. 
280 Loup-garou: A were- wolf, or man who (either through his 
own will or through enchantment) is supposed to become 
a wolf and devour children. 
284 the oxen: It is an old belief that at midnight on Christmas 
Eve, the oxen fall on their knees and worship the child Jesus. 
306 an ancient city: Florence, in Italy. 
335 dower : The money or property that a woman receives from 

her people when she marries. 
337 the great seal: The official seal or impression made on wax 

or on a round gilded wafer pasted upon a document. 
344 draught-board: Checker-board. 
354 curfew: The word means cover -fire. The bell that warns 

people to put out their lights and go to bed. 
381 Ishmael: Ishmael and his mother, Hagar, were driven out 
of the tents of Abraham, and wandered in the desert. 
Gen. XXI, 9-21. 
413 Tous les Bourgeois: The Burgers of Chartres, and The 

Chimes of Dunkirk j — old French songs. 
430 their commander: Colonel Winslow. 
456 never . . . sworn . . . allegiance: See page 24. 
466 tocsin's alarum: The tocsin was an alarm-bell or loud 
drum-beat to rouse a town or an army. Alarum is our 
word alarm, 
472 Prince of Peace : Christ. 

484 Ave Maria: Hail Mary; a prayer to the Virgin Mary. 
486 Elijah: The prophet Elijah was caught up to heaven in a 

chariot of fire. 2 Kings ii, 11-12. 
498 ambrosial: Very sweet and delicious. Ambrosia, in the 

Greek myths, was the food of the gods. 
507 the Prophet: When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, 
after talking with God, his face shone so brightly that the 
children of Israel were afraid of him. He had to cover his 



NOTES 115 

LINE 

face while he spoke to them. Exod. xxiv, 12-18; xxxiv, 

28-35. 
575 refluent: Flowing back; ebbing. 
579 leaguer: The camp of an army besieging a city. 
597 Paul: The Apostle Paul was shipwrecked on the island of 

Melita. Acts xxviii, 1, 2. 
605 Benedicite: Bless you. A Latin greeting used by priests. 
615 Titan-Uke: In Greek mythology the Titans were giants, 

the sons and daughters of Heaven and Earth. Briareus, 

the hundred-handed monster, was son of the same parents. 
621 gleeds: Burning coals. 

657 bell or book: Tolling bell; the service-book of the church. 
672 Newfoundland: The accent here is on the second syllable. 

The usual pronunciation is New' fund land. 
674 savannas : Low level prairies. 

677 mammoth: The huge hairy elephant of prehistoric times. 
705 coureurs-des-bois : In French, this means runner s-oj-the- 

woods. Hunters and trappers in North America. 
707 voyageur: A boatman; usually one who carried supplies 

from one trading-post to another. 
713 Saint Catherine's tresses: Saint Cath^ine of Siena, in 

Italy (1347-80) vowed never to marry. Hence to braid 

Saint Catherine's tresses is to lead a single life. 

732 shards: Sharp pieces of broken pottery. 

733 O Muse: The author here follows the example of Greek 
and Latin authors, who called on the Spirit of Poetry to 
help them. 

741 Beautiful River: The Ohio. 

750 Opelousas: In Louisiana. A great many Acadians settled 

on both sides of the southern Mississippi. This region is 

still called the Acadian Coast. 
755 chutes: Narrow channels with rushing currents. 
766 Plaquemine : A large bayou not far south of Baton Rouge. 
769 tenebrous: Dark. 
782 shrinking mimosa: The sensitive plant; its leaves close at 

a touch or jar. 
807 Atchafalaya: A river in Louisiana. 

816 Wachita: The name of a river in Arkansas and Louisiana. 
819 cope : The head or top. 
821 ladder of Jacob: Jacob saw the angels ascending to heaven 

on a ladder in the clouds. Gen. xxviii, 10-12. 



116 NOTES 

LINE 

842 tholes : Pins that support the oars of a rowboat. 

856 Teche: Bayou Teche. 

858 pastor: In Latin the word means shepherd. 

878 Bacchantes: In Greek myths, those who worshiped Bac- 
chus (the god of wine) with wild songs and dances. 

890 Yule-tide : Christmas. The Druids considered the mistle- 
toe sacred. 

914 sombrero: The Spanish word for hat; usually a wide- 
brimmed hat. 

952 Adayes : A town in northwestern Louisiana, ten miles from 
Natchitoches. 

953 Ozarks : Mountains in Arkansas and Missouri. 

961 Olympus : The mountain in Greece on which the gods were 
supposed to live. 

970 ci-devant: A French word meaning /ormer. 

971 patriarchal: Like a dignified old man who rules over a large 
family. 

984 Natchitoches: A parish in Louisiana. The word is pro- 
nounced n&' ke tosh, but the meter suggests that Longfel- 
low pronounced it as it is spelled — natch i to' dies. 

1009 Creoles: Descendants of the French and Spanish settlers 
of Louisiana. 

1033 Carthusian: A monk of the severe order founded by Saint 
Bruno in 1086. The chief monastery of the order is in the 
Swiss Valley of the Chartreuse — hence the name. The 
Carthusians keep almost complete silence. 

1044 Upharsin: The last word of the message that King Bel- 
shazzar saw written on the wall. Dan. v, 25-28. 

1057 oracular: As if coming from an oracle, or person through 
whom the gods were supposed to speak. 

1060 with their tears : The reference is to the Magdalen^s bath- 
ing the feet of Jesus. Luke vii, 36-38. 

1063 Prodigal Son: Luke xv, 11-24. 

1064 Foolish Virgin: Matthew xxv, 1-12. 

1082 Oregon: The old name for the Columbia River. 
1082 Walleway: In northwestern Oregon. 

1082 Owyhee: A river in Idaho, flowing into the Snake River 
in Oregon. 

1083 Wind-River Mountains: In Wyoming. 

1084 Sweet-water: A mountain range of the Rockies, in Wyo- 
ming. 



NOTES 117 

LINE 

1085 Fontaine-qui-bout: A creek emptying into the Arkansas at 
Pueblo, Colorado. The name means, inFrench, boiling spring, 

1085 sierras: Mountain chains; from the Spanish word sierra, 
a saw. 

1091 amorphas : Wild bean plants, covered with purple flowers. 

1095 Ishmaers children: This probably refers to the passage 
in the Bible (Gen. xvi, 12) : " He [Ishmael] will be a wild 
man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's 
hand against him." Longfellow is speaking of the Indians. 

1102 anchorite: A hermit. 

1114 Fata Morgana: An Italian word for the mirage; lakes and 
rivers appear in the sky, and then disappear again. 

1119 Shawnee: A tribe of Algonquin Indians. 

1120 Camanches: The Comanche Indians, in Wyoming. 
1167 Black Robe chief: A Catholic missionary. 

1175 Jesuit: A member of the Roman Catholic Society of Jesus, 
founded by Ignatius Loyola, in 1534. 

1181 vespers: Evening service. 

1182 susurrus: Pronounced su sur'us. Murmuring. 

1219 compass-flower: The compass plant, found on the prairies. 
The lower leaves turn their edges to north and south. 

1226 asphodel: In Greek story, the white flowers of the dead. 

1226 nepenthe : A drink that dulls sorrow. 

1233 Saginaw River : In Michigan. 

1241 Tents of Grace : A name for the dwellings of the Moravians, 
a Christian sect founded by the disciples of John Huss, in 
Germany, 1722. The Moravians were quiet pious people. 

1253 sylvan shades: Pennsylvania (Penn's Woods). 

1256 names of the trees: Many of the streets of Philadelphia 
are named for trees, as Chestnut, Walnut, Locust, Spruce, 
Pine, etc. 

1257 Dryads: In Greek mythology, the spirits of the trees. 
1298 a pestilence : In 1793 there was a terrible epidemic of yel- 
low fever in Philadelphia. 

1312 the poor: Words spoken by Jesus: John xii, 3-8. 

1328 the Swedes : The Swedes, as early as 1698, began a church 
at Wicaco, now inside the city limits of Philadelphia. 

1355 like the Hebrew: The Hebrews marked their door-posts 
with the blood of a lamb so that the Angel of Death might 
pass the house without stopping. Exod. xii, 3, 6, 7, 12, 13. 

1391 another race: The English settlers. 



PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY 



The diacritical marks given below are those found in Webster's New Interna- 
tional Dictionary. Note that the pronunciation of French words can be given 
only approximately by means of signs and English equivalents. 

EXPLANATION OF MARKS 

A Dash ("■) above the vowel denotes the long sound. 
A Curve {^) above the vowel denotes the short sound. 

A Circumflex Accent ( '^ ) above the vowels a or u denotes the sound of a in cSre, 
or of u in tfirn ; above the vowel o it denotes the sound of o in 8rb. 
A Dot (•) above the vowel a denotes the sound of a in past. 
A Double Dot (* *) above the vowel a denotes the sound of a in star. 
A Double Dot (. ,) below the vowel u denotes the sound of u in trjie. 
A Wave ("^) above the vowel e denotes the sound of e in her. 

8 sounds like z. 
5 sounds like s. 
g sounds like j. 
a, e, o are similar in sound to a, e, o, but are not pronounced so long. 



Abb6 Guillaume Thomas Francis Baynal 

(Sb-ba^ ge-yom/, etc.). 
Acadie (a-ka-deO. 
Accadia (Sc-caMi-a). 
Adayes (a-da/yez). 
AeUan (e^lT-Sn). 

Aix-la-Chapelle (aks-la-sha-pelO. 
Amorphas (a-m8r/faz). 
Augelus Domini (5n'je-lus d5m'i-m). 
Arcadia (ar-ca-'di-a). 
asphodel (Ss^fo-dSl). 
Atchafalaya (Sch-a-fa-li^a). 
Attakapas (St-tuk/&-paw). 
Ave Maria (a^ve ma-re^a). 

Bacchantes (bak-kSn^tez). 

Bacchus (bSk^us). 

Basil (bSz/il). 

bayou (bi^oo). 

Beau Sejour (bo sa-zhoor'). 

belles lettres (bel letr^). 

Benedicite (ben-e-dis'i-te). 

Benedict Bellefontaine (bgn^e-dTct bel- 

fon-tanO- 
Blomidon (blom^T-don). 
Bowdoin (bo^dn). 
Briareus (brPa-rus). 
Bruges (bruzh). 
Burgundian (bfir-gSn'dT-an). 

Gadie (ca-dieO- 
Camanches (ca-mSn'chez). 
Canard (cSn-ard'). 



Cape Breton (kap brSt'un). 

Carthusian (kar-thu-'zhan). 

Celtic (qeVtic). 

Charente Inferieur (shSr-anhf Snh-fS- 

re-er^). 
Charnisay (shar-nT-za^). 
Chartreuse (shar-trehz''). 
Chartreux (shar-tre''). 
ci-devant (se-de-vanh^). 
Contes Populaires (kShnt pop-u-lSr'). 
coplas (kop^laz). 
Cotelle (ko tSF). _ 
coureurs-des-bois (koo/rer-da-bwa). 
couvre-feu (koo/vr-fS). 
Craigie (cra'ghe). 
Creole (cre^ol). 

Dante (dSnae). 

Divina Commedia (dt-ve'ni cSm-me'- 

dt-a). 
dryad (dri/Sd). 
Ducauroi (du-ko-rwa/). 

Elijah (e-li^ja). 
Eulalie (yew-lale). 
Evangeline (e-vSn-'ge-lTn). 

Fata Morgaua (fa^ta m6r-ga/na). 
Father Felician (fe-lish^yan). 
Fontaine-qui-bout (fdnh'^tan ke-boo). 

Gabriel Lajeunesse (la-zhe-nes). 
Gaspereau (gas-pe-roO' 



PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY 



119 



Gayarre (gi-a-ra'). 
Gnadenhutten (gna-dSn-hiit/Sn); 
Grand-Pr^ (granh-praO. 

Hagar (ha'gr). 

Haliburton (hSl/T-bfir-tn). 

Herodotus (her-od^o-tus). 

Hiawatha (hi-a-w6'tha). 

Horace (hordes). 

Horae Hellenicae (ho^re hel-len'T-se). 

Hyperion (hi-pe'ri-on). 

Isaac de Razilli (de ra-ze-ye^). 
Ishmael (ish-' ma-el). 

Jesuit (jez-yu-tV). 

Kavanagh (kSv/a-na). 

La Cle du Caveau (la kla du ka-vo'). 

La Gazza Ladra (la gat^za IWdrk). 

La Have (la have). 

La Salle (la sal). 

Leblanc (luh blank). 

Le Carillon de Duuquerque (luh k5r-e- 

y6nh'' de dun-kerk'). 
Letiche (la-ti'sh/). 
Lilinau (le'lT-no). 
Louisburg (loo^T-bfirg). 
Loup-garou (loo-gar-oo'). 
Loyola (lo-yo'la). 
Luigi Monti (lob-e^je monae). 

maitre de chapelle (ma'tre de sha-pel^). 

Manrique (man-re'ka). 

Melita (me-le/ta). 

Minas Basin (me^'nas). 

Moravian (mo-ra^vi-an). 

Morituri salutamus (mor-i-tu're sa-lu- 

ta^raus). 
Mowis (mo'wes). 

Natchitoches (nSck^e-tSsh). 
nepenthe (ne-pen^the). 
Normandy (nor^man-dl). 

Olympus (o-lTm'pus). 
Opelousas (5p-5-loo^sas). 
Outre-Mer (ootr-mSr'). 



Owyhee (o-wi-'he). 
Ozark (o^zark). 

Passamaquoddy (pSs-i-mi-kwSd'e). 
Pierre Capelle (pe-Sr^ kS-peF). 
Pisiquid (pis^i-kwid). 
Plaquemine (plSk-men^). 
Pluquet (plu-kaO^ 
Pointe Coupee (pwSnht koo-paO. 
Poitou (pwa-too'). 

Rene (re-na'). 
Rochelle (rS-shSlF). 
Rossini (rSs-se^ne). 

Saginaw (sSg'i-naw). 

Saint Maur (s5nh mor>'). 

Saintonge (sSnh-tSnhzh/). 

Samson Agonistes (sSm^sSn S-gon-Ts'- 

tez), 
seraglio (se-r51'yo). 
Shawnee (shS-ne^. 
Siena (se-a'na). 
Sierras (se-er^raz). 
signor (se^nyor). 
Sinai (si^'ni or sl/na-i). 
sombrero (s5m-bra''ro). 
Straits of Messina (mes-se^'na). 

Tgche (tash). 
tenebrous (ten^e-brus). 
Titan (tFtn). 

Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres (too la 
boor-zhwa de shar'tr). 

Ultima Thule (iiFte-ma thuaS). 
Upharsin (u-far'sin). 
Utrecht (u^trekt). 

Vendee (vanh-da). 
voyageur (vwa-ya-zher'). 

Wachita (wSsh^e-taw). 
Walleway (woll'e-wa). 
were wolf (wer^ wolf). 
Wicaco (we-ka^ko). 
Worcester (woo'ster). 

Xerxes (zerkB^ez). 



CHILDREN'S CLASSICS 
IN DRAMATIC FORM 

BOOK ONE — For First and Second Grades. 30 cents. Postpaid. 
BOOK TWO — For Second and Third Grades. 35 cents. Postpai4 
BOOK THREE— For Third and Fourth Grades. 40 cents. Postpaid 
BOOK FOUR — For Fifth and Sixth Grades. 50 cents. Postpaid. 
BOOK FIVE — For Seventh and Eighth Grades. 60 cents. Postpaid. 

By AUGUSTA STEVENSON 

Formerly a Teacher in the Indianapolis Public Schools 

The author is a successful teacher who has had care^ 

ful training in the playwright's art. The books have been 
strongly commended both by experienced teachers and by 
literary critics. 

They have been found to accomplish three important func- 
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ing; second, they develop an expressive voice; and third, 
they give freedom and grace in the bodily attitudes and 
movements involved in reading and speaking. 

The use of these books will greatly improve the oral 
reading in your schools* In these days, when so many books 
are hastily read in school, there is a tendency to sacrifice 
expression to the mechanics and interpretation of reading. 
Those acquainted with school work know too well the resulting 
monotonous, indistinct speech and the self-conscious, listless 
attitude which characterize so much of the reading of pupils 
in grades above the third. The dramatic appeal of the stories 
in this book will cause the child to lose himself in the char- 
acter he is impersonating, and to read with a naturalness and 
expressiveness unknown to him before ; and this improvement 
will be evident in all his oral reading and even in his speech. 



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